HOSPITAL bosses that said money-saving staff “efficiency” is one of the major reasons they plan to merge.

Royal Bournemouth and Christchurch Hospitals Trust is due to unite with Poole Hospital in 2013 – if approved.

The chief executives gave a presentation to councillors on Bournemouth’s Health Panel on Wednesday evening.

Tony Spotswood, of Bournemouth and Christchurch hospitals, said: “One of the things that stood out is that we could operate more efficiently as a single trust.

“In particular, there are significant savings in the order of £20million in coming together through back office efficiency and procurement.”

The meeting heard the trusts have to save around £54million between them a year.

The bosses have previously said the staffing levels are likely to fall by 10 per cent between 2013 and 2017.

Bournemouth and Christchurch employs 4,700 people, and Poole 3,500.

The trusts are concluding a joint consultation into how the new body will be governed.

The meeting heard the merger decision would rest with the health body Monitor – but also the Office of Fair Trading.

Mr Spotswood said under the new health bill the OFT had to ensure there was no “significant lessening of competition” for patients. If the proposal is approved, the merger would take place between April 1 and July 1 next year. The new name is still under consideration.

‘There are clinical challenges’

MR Spotswood was asked at the meeting if “frontline services” would be cut.

He said there were “clinical challenges” and any changes would be the subject of further consultation.

He said those challenges included a drop-in junior doctor coming into hospitals.

That meant out-of-hours emergency surgery might be based at one site or rotated between sites.

Chris Bown, chief executive of Poole Hospital, said coming together would share best practice in tackling infections like MRSA. He said the trusts treat 1million people a year and the vast majority are out patients and day patients who will still use the same sites.

He said: “There are some specialist services such as bone marrow transplants, where both the trusts provide high quality services, but small numbers of patients, no more than 150 per year. There’s lots of evidence that if we can bring all sorts of highly specialised efforts together then the quality improves.”