NHS fails to measure up, a third of Trusts cannot balance books |
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Wed, 27 Jul 2005 20:05
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The Healthcare Commission today released this year's performance ratings for NHS hospitals and these ratings show that most hospitals have dropped some stars from the previous year's ratings.
This fall in performance levels can be directly attributed to the failure of the NHS trusts to meet targets in the face of a severe financial crunch. However, the Commission was satisfied by the level of improvement shown by the primary care, mental health and ambulance trusts. But the NHS watchdog has come down heavily on hospitals, which failed to meet accident and emergency targets.
The Health Commission has also found that 35 percent of NHS trusts are having problems balancing their books. This means that 138 out of 590 trusts have tripped up on their year-end financial targets. Faced with these results, the Health Commission has downgraded three hospitals from the three-star category bringing the number of hospitals so categorized to 73, down from the 76 last year. Two-star hospitals have also registered a dip with only 53 hospitals qualifying for this rating as against the 58 last year. However, the number of one-star hospitals rose from 29 last year to 38 in this year's ratings chart.
The Healthcare Commission's Chief executive Anna Walker was understandably livid at this performance by the trusts, "We consider this very serious and an issue that must be addressed because patient care will suffer if financial management isn't got right by trusts. Quality of care is inextricably linked to good financial management," she stressed.
The Commission found that all hospitals comfortably met the A&E target of 90 percent in the first nine months of the year, but when the target was revised to 98 percent, almost 62 out of 159 trusts with A&E departments fell in the red. The Government's A&E targets specify that patients should wait less than four hours before receiving attention or treatment. This decision has been criticized by doctors, but hailed by patients.
The NHS star ratings were first introduced in 2001. By this method, the government and consumers alike are kept informed about a hospital's performance by rating it with three stars for the best hospital and zero star for the worst. This year the Health Commission has identified Mid Yorkshire and Surrey and Sussex as the worst performers.
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