A&E waiting time targets missed at Peterborough's hospital trust despite progress

Members of Peterborough City Council’s Health Scrutiny Committee heard that Peterborough City Hospital and Hinchingbrooke Hospital - which are managed by the North West Anglia NHS Foundation Trust - are falling behind national targets of 95 per cent of patients being seen at A&E within four hours (arrival, admission, transfer or discharge).

Jessica Bawden, director of corporate affairs at the Cambridge & Peterborough Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG), said Peterborough and Hinchingbrooke hospitals only achieved 87.3 per cent of patients being treated within four hours in June 2018, a slight improvement on May (86 per cent).

But this is still below the plan agreed with NHS England for a recovery trajectory of 90 per cent by August, and meeting the national target of 95 per cent by March 2019.

“Progress has been made since May”, Ms Bawden explained, “and we expect further progress in our November report. But the plain fact is that we are still well behind national targets for A&E waiting times.

“The roll-out of the ‘111 option 2’ telephone number has helped focus people where they need to go, but still we are finding that far too many people are attending A&E who do not need to do so. This then causes a backlog in both clinical and social delivery services.”

Cllr Samantha Hemraj commented: “I have found the information in this report very useful, but equally it is very frustrating that the updates are so far into the future.”