Casualty departments failing to hit target

CONCERNS over waiting times at accident and emergency departments were raised at yesterday’s board meeting.

Steve Sutcliffe, interim director of finance, said Oldham PCT was still not hitting the required target, which is shared with the Pennine Acute Trust (PAT).

The national target is 98 per cent of accident and emergency patients treated in less than four hours.

Since April 1, this year, the acute trust, which runs A&Es in Oldham, Rochdale, North Manchester and Bury, has failed to achieve the standard.

Councillor Peter Dean, non-executive director, said: “Year on year, we see more attendances at accident and emergency. We, as a PCT, have invested significantly into services that should be preventing people from going to A&E.

“We should look into how these services are working. Sometimes we have to stand back and figure out why are we getting such an enormous number of patients.

“We also get a significant number at the walk-in centre — they would normally have been going to accident and emergency.”

Denis Gizzi, who works in system reform and service innovation, said the performance of one of the four accident and emergency departments within PAT affected the target.

He said: “In August, we had four days with exceptionally bad performance, so we need to look at that.

“But out of all four sites, North Manchester General Hospital in Crumpsall is the second worst performing A&E site in the country.”

A spokesman for the PAT said: “A&E department attendances are 3 per cent above contracted levels. This is clearly putting pressure on all of our A&E departments, especially North Manchester General — which is by far the busiest — but also at the Royal Oldham Hospital.

“We achieved the 98 per cent for our A&E standard last year and we are confident we will achieve that this year as well.”