The debt ridden trust that provides hospital services in southeast London should be broken up and its parts taken over by other trusts, the special administrator appointed to the trust, Matthew Kershaw, has recommended in a draft report.1

He said that South London Healthcare NHS Trust, which comprises Queen Mary’s Hospital in Sidcup, Princess Royal University Hospital near Orpington, and Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Woolwich, could not resolve its financial problems and that the best hope of creating a stable platform for the future was to break it up.

The trust, formed in 2009, inherited debts that have since risen to a total of £153m (€190m; $245m). It is running a deficit of more than £1m a week, …