The Isle of Wight NHS Trust is ‘taking action in all areas’ after its annual report revealed it missed almost half of its performance targets and had to borrow an extra £13 million.
Its performance was in the red for 12 of the 25 recorded areas in 2018/19 — including A&E waiting times, ambulance response times and some mental health services.
Drastically worse than in 2013/14
Many of the missed targets had fallen against the previous year’s figures and were drastically worse than in 2013/14, when almost all were met.
A spokesperson for the Isle of Wight NHS Trust said:
“We are totally committed to improving our services and our teams have been working flat out to achieve our ambition of ‘Getting to Good’ by 2020.
“Local people rightly expect the best possible standards of care and we are taking action in all areas of the organisation to improve.
“We have stepped up recruitment, both at home and abroad, and introduced a real focus on developing our staff so that we can provide the standard of care that our community and we expect.”
Targets missed
In A&E, too many patients were waiting longer than four hours to be admitted, transferred or discharged. Only 82 per cent were seen within four hours, against a target of 95 per cent.
Ambulance response times were too long, on average, for both life-threatening conditions (ten minutes, 32 seconds against a target of seven minutes) and serious conditions (19 minutes, 35 seconds against a target of 18 minutes).
In mental health services, fewer than half of patients received a formal review within 12 months in the care programme approach process, when the target is 95 per cent.
Patients also waited too long to receive treatment following a referral by their GP. The 18-week target was met just 48 per cent of the time for admitted patients against a guideline of 90 per cent.
In addition, 1,112 patients waited more than six weeks for a diagnostic test or procedure on the Island over the year, when the trust’s target is fewer than 100.
Deficit increased to £30 million
The annual report also showed the trust, which is already in financial special measures, had to significantly increase its deficit nine months into the year — from about £17 million to £30 million.
This took the trust’s total borrowing for the year from the Department of Health and Social Care to almost £70 million.
The spokesperson said:
“We spent more than we should last year because we decided to invest in patient care.
“Our financial challenge remains significant but so far this year we are on track to meet our savings plan and we have launched a campaign across the trust called ‘Save to Invest,’ which will help our teams reduce waste so that we can continue to invest in frontline services.
“We know there is a way to go but there has been significant improvement over the last year, particularly in our community services and in the care we provide to people at the end of their lives.
“Working closely with commissioners and the council we will soon publish the Isle of Wight Health and Care Plan, which will set out our priorities for the next three years and help to make our services sustainable.”
The full report can be viewed below:
This article is from the BBC’s LDRS (Local Democracy Reporter Service) scheme, which OnTheWight is taking part in. Some alterations and additions may be been made by OnTheWight. Ed
Image: © Used with the kind permission of Auntie P
