Peterborough and Stamford Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust – which runs Peterborough District, Edith Cavell, and Stamford hospitals – has met or bettered a clutch of benchmarks over the past 12 months, including those for reducing cases of infections CDiff and MRSA.

It has also met performance goals for treatment times for new cancer patients.

Chief executive Nik Patten said the hospital had turned a corner generally after revelations last year about spiralling delays for orthopaedic patients.

He said: “The last year was extremely challenging. We saw unprecedented numbers of patients and were still treating the backlog of patients from the orthopaedic waiting list issue. I am disappointed this has caused some patients not to receive the high quality healthcare they expected from the trust, and our staff expect to deliver.

“However, thanks to the hard work of all members of staff from clinical teams to support staff, our performance against the key targets improved immensely in the new year, and this has continued since April.”

The performance goals are set by the Department of Health and the Healthcare Commission watchdog, and relate to the last financial year, April 2007 to March 2008.

The figures show the trust beat a new target for the proportion of non-admitted patients treated within 18 weeks from being referred, achieving 94.8 per cent compared with the target of 90 per cent.

It was below the expected level of 85 per cent for admitted patients at 78.6 per cent, but has met the target since the end of the financial year.

The trust also hit the mark for reducing cases of hospital bug CDiff by 10 per cent, with 194 total recorded cases. There were six cases of MRSA, well under the set maximum of nine.

On the financial front, the trust expects to report a better-than-planned surplus of about £7.4 million for the year, which it says will allow more investment in staff and equipment.

Mr Patten added: “During the coming year we will be continuing our patient safety agenda, making sure our waiting times continue to fall and continuing our fight against hospital-acquired infections, where we hope to see cases of CDiff fall at a faster rate to match our excellent MRSA performance.

“Although the indicators only provide a snapshot of the trust’s performance, they do demonstrate the trust is providing generally very good patient care, which I believe is getting better all the time.”