HEFT Consulting helps to shape the healthcare M & A landscape. Beccy Fenton, CEO, recently participated in a ‘dry run’ M & A exercise, with participants taking the roles of buyer (FT Trust), acquiree (underperforming Trust), accountant, lawyer, SHA and Department of Health. As the first FT to integrate a neighbouring Trust, Heart of England FT (HEFT) wrote the rulebook for healthcare M & A, acquiring Good Hope Hospital in 2007, “The landscape has definitely altered”, said Beccy, “and this exercise graphically illustrated that the M & A process is in fact more difficult and onerous today than it was two years ago. If M & A is to be the panacea for failing Trusts nationwide then we need to strip out many of the uncertainties around the process as it stands today”.