Quality of services rated as fair in annual health check
12-Oct-2006
Press Release
Thursday 12 October 2006
Quality of services rated as fair in annual health check
North West London Hospitals NHS Trust has been awarded a rating of 'fair' for the quality of services it provides and a rating of 'weak' for its use of resources according to the Healthcare Commission's (HCC) annual health check.
Commenting on the ratings which assess the performance of NHS Trusts between April 2005 to March 2006, Chief Executive of the Trust, Mary Wells, said: "The last year has been a challenging time for this organisation and whilst there is room for improvement, staff have worked extremely hard to meet some important standards to improve the quality of care we provide to our patients. As the health check shows we have met many of the national waiting time targets including those for patients with cancer and the four hour target for A&E.
"It is important to note that the ratings refer to assessments made on performance during April 2005 to March 2006 and since then we have gone on to make further improvements, not least within maternity services demonstrated by the lifting of special measures in September."
The new annual health check replaces the Healthcare Commission's star ratings for NHS organisations and assesses all NHS Trusts in two key areas - quality of service and use of resources.
For the quality of service rating of 'fair' the Trust's performance was assessed against the following standards:
- HCC's 24 core standards - overall score of partly met. At the time of submitting the information to the HCC the Trust had met 14 of the 24 standards. By March 2006 the Trust was compliant with 20 of the 24 core standards.
- Existing national targets - overall score of almost met. The Trust met 10 of 12 existing national targets including cancer, outpatient and inpatient waiting times. The Trust failed to meet targets to readmit patients whose operation had been cancelled for non-clinical reasons within 28 days.
- New national targets - overall score of good. The Trust met nine of the 12 new national standards including waiting time standards for MRI and CT scans.
- Improvement reviews - overall score of fair. The Trust was given a fair rating for each of the four reviews which looked at services for children, admissions management, diagnostics services and medicines management.
For the use of resources rating of 'weak' the Trust was assessed against part of the Audit Commission's Auditor's Local Evaluation Assessment which covers five areas including financial reporting, financial management, financial standing, internal control and value for money.
Chief Executive, Mary Wells, added: "Clearly a rating of weak for use of resources is disappointing and results from the Trust's current financial deficit. As many of our staff and local community are aware we have a robust turnaround plan in place which is looking at how we can improve the way we work, such as reducing length of stay, which will in turn help us to make better use of the resources ensuring a stronger financial future for this Trust.
"There is still more for us to do. Improving our rating for 2006/2007 is a top priority and one which I will be monitoring very closely."
ENDS.
Note to editors
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Improvement reviews are carried out by the Healthcare Commission and look at whether the Trust is striving to improve the care and treatment they provide to patients.
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The Trust achieved six month waiting time target for inpatients and 13 week waiting time for outpatients. As part of the challenging target that by 2008 all patients must be seen and treated within 18 weeks of referral, the Trust achieved the key milestone of no-one waiting more than 26 weeks for a MRI and CT scan.
- The Trust also performed well on the cancer targets ensuring that all suspected cancer are seen within two weeks of a GP referral to a consultant appointment and that patients wait no longer than 31 days from diagnosis to treatment and 62 days from urgent referral to treatment for all types of cancer.
For more information contact the press office on 020 8869 2421.