Room for improvement at Pennine Trust hospitals

Date published: 13/10/2006

The Healthcare Commission’s assessment of hospitals shows that those run by Pennine Acute Trust are rated only fair on a scale of Excellent, Good, Fair and Poor.

The first ever Annual Health Check results of hospitals in Rochdale, Bury, Oldham and North Manchester shows that there are areas for improvement.

Pennine was rated 'fair' under the 'use of resources' category and within the 'quality of services' category, Pennine was again rated 'fair'.

Bob Chadwick, acting chief executive, said: "We welcome this new report into the Trust’s services. The performance ratings have helped to highlight areas that we’re doing well in and areas that need improvement. The broad picture is of us holding our own in terms of hospitals across the country, but we know that we can improve.

"Pennine met or beat the existing national targets in a number of areas key to access, including patients waiting four hours or less in A&E and a maximum two week wait for all patients suspected of having cancers from urgent GP referral to first outpatient appointment.

"As with all reports of this nature they are a snapshot in time, and we’d be first to say that there are areas that we can improve on. The service development programmes which have gone to public consultation, Healthy Futures and Making It Better, will help support that work.

"One of the areas in the report where we underachieved is the number of cancelled operations and patients not admitted with 28 days of cancellation.

"As has already been reported locally, we’ve already made improvements against this target compared to the year before.
 
"We are seeing more patients, more quickly and carrying out more operations and examinations than ever before, despite the pressures we face."