The Peterborough Evening Telegraph
Deficit down but hospital misses target for A&E waiting times
Annual report highlights trust’s record over last year
The deficit at the trust which runs Peterborough City Hospital has reduced by £20 million, but A&E waiting times have fallen quite a way short of the national target.
Only 80.1 per cent of patients were seen in the hospital’s Emergency Department within four hours in 2016/17, compared to the target of 95 per cent.
The trust’s annual report states: “Our emergency staff are now seeing 40 per cent more activity in the emergency department than in 2010/11.
“This increase in demand for emergency care, coupled with the higher than average numbers of patients who have experienced delays in their discharge from hospital into another care setting, has, at times, impacted negatively on patients’ journeys through our hospitals during 2016/17.
“In addition, the trust saw an increase in the number of emergency patients from Lincolnshire in the evenings following the temporary reduction of opening hours of Grantham Hospital A&E department this year.”
The report states a number of measures are in place to try and reduce the pressures on A&E. It also reports that a deficit of £17.7 million was recorded in 2016/17, with the budget gap largely due to Private Finance Initiative (PFI) payments and agency costs.
However, that figure is well down on the £37.1 million deficit recorded the previous year. The figures are the last to ever be published by the Peterborough and Stamford Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, which has now joined with Hinchingbrooke Hospital to become part of the new North West Anglia NHS Foundation Trust.
Chief executive Stephen Graves said: “I would like to pay tribute to our excellent and talented staff who, despite the challenging year due to further increases in activity and the level of change, have risen to that challenge so positively and have continued to focus on improving care to our local community.”
The trust made £15.2 million of ‘cost improvement savings’ - the fifth year in a row it has saved at least £13 million - but at the time of going to press had not answered a question from the Peterborough Telegraph as to how it had saved the money.