NHS trust improving

Date published: 16 October 2009

THE Pennine Acute Hospitals NHS Trust has has gone from “fair” to “good” on financial management in this year’s NHS performance ratings — the best result it has received.

The trust, which includes the Royal Oldham Hospital, maintained its “good” rating for Quality of Services in the annual performance rating of all 392 NHS trusts by the Care Quality Commission (CQC), an independent health regulator.

It looks at how well trusts have performed against Government targets and standards and looks at a broad range of areas including patient safety, cleanliness and access to services.

The trust, which runs hospitals in Oldham, Rochdale, Bury and North Manchester, scored top marks in safety and cleanliness, standard of care, dignity and respect and good management.

But it failed to hit all targets in areas such as waiting times and keeping the public healthy.

It did, however, reduce MRSA by 59 per cent from April, 2008, to March, 2009, and reduce cases of Clostridium Difficile by 16 per cent.

The trust has achieved the 2010-11 Clostridium Difficile reduction standard two years early.

John Jesky, trust chairman, welcomed the announcement and said: “This is good news.

“We are encouraged by the trust’s performance rating which reflects the hard work of staff and the improvements and progress we have made across our hospitals over the last year.

“I am particularly pleased with our high standards of care, dignity, respect and cleanliness as these are important to people who use our services.

“We will want to build on this success, maintain a careful eye on our finances, and continue to put the patient at the heart of everything we do.

“I would like to congratulate all staff across the Trust wholeheartedly on this year’s results.”