29.07.16
Gloucestershire Hospitals FT agrees A&E action plan with NHSI
NHS Improvement has agreed a plan with Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS FT to support improvement in the trust’s A&E department after it found that waiting times were too long.
The trust first developed an A&E plan in March after an investigation by Monitor (now NHS Improvement), which has led to some improvements.
In May and June 87% of A&E patients were seen within four hours, compared to 77% in April. However, this still falls short of the national standard of 95%.
Claudia Griffith, regional director at NHS Improvement, said: “We recognise that Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS FT has already started work on reducing patient waiting times and welcome the efforts of its clinical teams to achieve this. However, there are significant changes that still need to be made to make sure patients are being seen more quickly.
“We will work closely with the trust to make sure it has everything in place to develop a robust recovery plan so it can continue to make positive changes.”
NHS England indicated recently that it will abandon national performance targets for areas such as A&E, which have been consistently missed, in order to balance its finances.
Deborah Lee, the newly appointed chief executive of Gloucestershire Hospitals, said: “The provision of high-quality care is absolutely paramount and while we are disappointed at the position we find ourselves in today we are committed to getting this right for our patients.
“We do provide safe high-quality care for the vast majority of patients and the public should be reassured about that. We fully accept the need to improve performance in A&E and the role that we have to play in achieving this. We care deeply about this and we are committed to getting this right.”
Gloucestershire Hospitals has also appointed a new improvement director and will work more closely with other health and social care services in the area to ensure that urgent care services outside the hospital complement improvements within it.
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