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Hospitals hit Q2 targets, but Mackey admits deficit ‘worse than planned’

English hospitals treated more patients within government target times in the second quarter of 2017-18 despite increased strain on services.

Over the period between July and September more patients were treated within four hours at A&E departments, and more people were seen within the 18-week target for non-emergency operations.

The percentage of emergency patients seen within the first four hours met the national aim of 90%, while 230,000 more patients were seen within the 18-week target for non-emergency procedures.

In addition, cost improvement programmes have delivered £1.2bn of improvements in the first six months of the year and hospitals have made more than £100m in agency spending cuts compared to the same period last year.

But good news aside, NHS Improvement (NHSI), which released the figures today, warned of a predicted £620m deficit collectively across all providers this year.

Hospital admissions across the country have also continued to rise, and there were around 168,000 delayed discharges from facilities, accounting for 5% of NHS beds.

“Despite providers of NHS care being under immense pressure, they have done better for both patients and taxpayers this quarter,” commented Jim Mackey, outgoing NHSI chief executive. “In addition, NHS providers are delivering levels of efficiency and productivity that no other health system is managing to deliver.

“Based on this quarter’s results, the combined end-of-year deficit for hospitals in England will be worse than planned. While we are working across the NHS to prepare for winter pressures, they may be difficult and will place the system under even greater pressure.

“However, we will continue to focus our efforts on working with providers and other NHS bodies to mitigate this risk as much as possible.”

In response to the figures, Chris Hopson, the chief executive of NHS Providers, said things were encouraging but was extremely concerned by the deficit announcement.

“These figures underline the extremely difficult conditions trusts face in providing safe, timely, high-quality care for patients,” he added. “It is to their enormous credit that in the midst of a prolonged and severe financial squeeze and workforce shortages they have responded to growing demand by treating more patients than ever. It is particularly encouraging to see the improvement in A&E response times.

“However, sustaining that progress in order to meet the 95% national standard by the end of next year will be extremely difficult, particularly given the continuing difficulties with high bed occupancy rates and delayed transfers of care (DTOCs) for patients who are ready to move on.

“The additional £1bn allocated for social care in the Spring Budget has not had the effect on DTOCs that we had hoped to see.”

The growth of traffic into A&E departments has prompted NHSI to work with Health Education England (HEE), NHS England and the Royal College of Emergency Medicine (RCEM) on a staffing plan.

‘Securing the future workforce for emergency departments in England’ sets out plans for the HEE and RCEM to recruit an additional 100 doctors a year for the next four years.

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