Trust mergers do not save money

Mergers of NHS trusts do not achieve target savings in management costs in the first two years after merger and can have unintended negative consequences that disrupt services, and set back developments in services. In a cross sectional study of nine trusts, and case study in four trusts Fulop and colleagues (p 246) conclude that the benefits of mergers were mostly the stated objectives, but drawbacks arose during the process of merging, and were not considered when the decision on whether to merge was made.