Waiting times cut at Royal Oldham

Figures show 86.9 per cent of patients under the care of the Pennine Acute Trust, which runs the Royal Oldham and three other hospitals, were seen within 18 weeks in March — up from 78.5 per cent a year ago.

Despite the increase, the percentage remains below the 90.3 per cent average across the North-West.

Health Secretary Andrew Lansley will today use examples such as improvements across the area to tell MPs the NHS is in excellent shape and waiting times are falling.

Figures for Pennine show the number of MRSA cases fell from 10 in 2010-11 to seven in 2011-12 and C.Diff incidents dropped from 160 to 125. There were two breaches of mixed-sex accommodation at the Trust in March, 2012, down from 52 in March, 2011.

The Health Secretary said: “The performance has been excellent and credit for that goes to NHS staff.”

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