Department of Health: The Paddington Health Campus Scheme

part fourAccountability for the schemewas uncertainThe Accountable Officer4.1 The Chief Executive of an NHS Trust sponsoring ascheme is the Accountable Officer for all capital schemes(Figure 8 overleaf). However in the case of the Campuspartners there was no clarity over whether there was, orshould have been, a single Accountable Officer.4.2 The Chief Executive of St Mary’s NHS Trustbelieved in late 2003 that, ultimately, he was thesingle Accountable Officer for the scheme, given thatall expenditure was initially made through his Trust’saccounts and then recharged to other Campus partnerson an agreed basis. Imperial College never accepted thattheir Rector was an Accountable Officer for this scheme,nor even that he was appropriately a Senior ResponsibleOwner for what was an NHS-led and driven scheme.The Chief Executive of the NHS confirmed in writingto the Campus partners in February 2004 that the ChiefExecutives of St Mary’s NHS Trust and the Royal Bromptonand Harefield NHS Trust and the Rector of ImperialCollege were equally accountable for determiningthe appropriateness of any expenditure by their ownorganisations on the Campus scheme.4.3 The Chief Executive of St Mary’s has subsequentlycome to learn that in April 2004 his external auditors hadstated that, since there was more than one participatingorganisation in the scheme it was not, by definition,possible for there to be one Accountable Officer for thescheme. The Department told us that it considered this tobe simply a governance issue of how the Campus partnerssatisfied themselves as to the propriety of expenditurecharged to their organisations, rather than an AccountableOfficer issue.The Strategic Health Authority4.4 In the first year following its establishment(2002-03), the North West London Strategic HealthAuthority kept a distance from the scheme, although it hada Non-Executive Director on the Joint Project Board. Italso set deadlines for the scheme, highlighted the interestsof Primary Care Trusts with those of the Campus partnersand gave strong direction as to how the scheme shouldproceed. It did not have any influence over ImperialCollege. In the latter stages of the scheme, the role of theStrategic Health Authority blurred into that of a projectpartner, whose principal distinct role was to act as aconduit between the scheme and the Department.From September 2004 the Chair or Chief Executive of theStrategic Health Authority chaired the Principals’ Group.the Paddington Health Campus scheme33