Top official in crackdown on waiting times
STAFFORDSHIRE's top health official has vowed to "use every lever" available to improve the dismal A&E performance in the north of the county.
The pledge has come from Graham Urwin, the joint chief executive of the area's three primary care trusts, who has branded delays in the University Hospital of North Staffordshire (UHNS) as "not good enough".
The hospital has been hit with a £1 million fine by the PCTs for falling way below national targets.
The targets state that 95 per cent of A&E patients should be treated and sent home or admitted to a ward within four hours of their arrival in casualty.
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But UHNS ended the financial year with a record of just 92.54 per cent, despite a new state-of-the art unit opening last month.
Mr Urwin said: "Quite frankly, A&E performance out of UHNS is not good enough.
"We have now become increasingly intolerant of their underlying poor performance, and we have to use every lever that is available to us to improve that."
He added that fines would continue every month until the hospital solved the problem.
Comments
by atriskNurse
Wednesday, May 02 2012, 7:20AM
“well if you close loads of beds and get rid of staff and don't replace ones who have left - you have less beds and less staff to manage the workload - Simples !! However fining the trust will mean more staff cuts - and more pressure put on the already overstretched ward staff to take patients from a&e even if its not safe to do so... will someone get a grip on reality ? you cant make cuts in the NHS and expect it to work the same, you also cant take on more work from Stafford and other areas and expect the reducing staffing levels to cope... but what will happen ? the staff will suffer and be blamed...”