THE NHS trust that provides mental health care services in St Helens spent £20,000 on changing its name, it has been revealed.

5 Boroughs Partnership NHS Foundation Trust, which runs Hollins Park Hospital in Warrington, changed its name to North West Boroughs Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust at the beginning of April.

Now, a Freedom of Information request  has revealed that the name change will cost the trust £20,000.

This total includes new signage, staff ID badges and consultation costs.

Other materials, including stationery, which feature the old name, will be used until they need to be reordered with the new logo.

The trust had previously provided care solely in Warrington, Halton, St Helens, Knowsley and Wigan but in the last six months has won contracts to deliver services outside of these five areas, including Greater Manchester and Sefton.

With the trust now covering 15 boroughs, it has opted to change its name to North West Boroughs Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust, which was voted for by 61 per cent of service users, staff and members of the public during a three-week consultation.

Chief executive Simon Barber said: “Our decision to change the trust’s name to North West Boroughs Healthcare NHS Foundation is about acknowledging the recent growth of the trust and ensuring our staff and service users in the additional boroughs we now serve are recognised in our organisation’s name.

“The timing of the change coincides with directions from NHS Identity to update our trust logo to comply with changes to national NHS branding guidance – as a result, we are able to combine the statutory changes required with updates to our new name branding.

“As a public body we fully recognise the importance of keeping any costs associated with these changes to a minimum.

“As such, we are prioritising any changes appropriately and will be spreading costs across the next 12 months in line with when branded materials would have routinely needed replacing or updating.

“One-off costs associated with the name change, covering consultation materials, signage, staff ID badges and some ID costs, have been identified and total £20,000.”