New NHS league tables make grim reading for Shropshire's emergency hospitals
New Department of Health league tables have ranked the performance of the county's emergency hospitals as amongst the worst in the country.
The data ranks NHS trusts across England - including acute trusts, non-acute trusts and ambulance trusts.
There are mixed results where Shropshire's hospitals are concerned.
Each section of the list is subdivided into four performance categories, with category one containing the best performing trusts and category four containing those with the poorest performance.
Trusts are ranked within their category based on a “score” that has been determined by averaging their performance against a range of targets, such as reducing waiting times for treatment and for being seen in A&E departments, or improving ambulance response times.
The lower the score, the better the performance.
Unsurprisingly Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust (SaTH), which manages Royal Shrewsbury Hospital and Princess Royal Hospital in Telford, has fared badly.
SaTH is in the worst section, category four, and comes 113th overall for acute trusts - out of 134.
The Robert Jones and Agnes Hunt Orthopaedic Hospital (RJAH) at Gobowen received a considerably better score, listed in category two, at 27 overall.
Shropshire Community Health Trust was listed in category two of the non-acute trusts, at joint 17th.
The Midlands Partnership NHS Foundation Trust is listed at number two in category one.
The ambulance service which serves Shropshire, West Midlands Ambulance Service (WMAS), was also ranked and is listed in category three, at sixth place overall.
The SaTH score comes amid ongoing difficulties for the trust, particularly in its A&E departments.
Figures last week showed that it was one of the worst in the country for people waiting more than 12 hours in A&E after doctors had taken a decision to admit them.
SaTH is in the midst of a major £312m overhaul of its services, intended to provide significant improvements.
The trust is making Shrewsbury the site of its only A&E, while women and children's services will also move to the hospital from Telford.
Princess Royal Hospital is becoming the trust's centre of planned care.
Only last week North Shropshire Lib Dem MP Helen Morgan warned that action is needed ahead of winter, with SaTH risking a state of 'permacrisis' given the ongoing poor performance against government targets.
She said: "We need an emergency package of measures to protect patients and their families from agony over the winter months and to relieve the pressure on our hospitals. These need to include increasing vaccine uptake for seasonal illnesses, increasing access to pharmacies and by expanding the number of out-of-hours GPs.
"Without them many more people could go through terrible agony not only in North Shropshire but across the county, unable to access the timely care they so desperately need."
Reacting to the waiting list figures SaTH's chief operating officer Ned Hobbs apologised and said work is ongoing to improve.
“We are in the process of delivering a number of improvements across our hospitals. Earlier this year we opened phase 1 of our new emergency department at Royal Shrewsbury Hospital, with phase 2 coming in the coming weeks. We have plans to increase acute inpatient bed capacity as a trust too, with 56 additional inpatient beds opening at RSH this year, and plans being finalised to increase acute assessment capacity at PRH too.
“We are collaborating with our partners to ensure that our communities can access the necessary services in the right place, including the extension of Urgent Community Response services. Additionally, we are enabling patients in hospital to be discharged safely as quickly as possible, through the expansion of the Care Transfer Hub, which will reduce waits for ambulances and those needing to be admitted.
“We are seeing small but steady improvements although we acknowledge that we have more to do.
“I would like to thank my dedicated colleagues for doing all they can to support patients’ care, dignity and comfort whilst they wait.”
Here is a list of selected NHS trusts and their rank in England. Each section is subdivided into four performance categories, with category one containing the best performing trusts and category four containing those with the poorest performance. Trusts are ranked within their category based on a “score” that has been determined by averaging their performance against a range of targets, such as reducing waiting times for treatment and for being seen in A&E departments, or improving ambulance response times.
The lower the score, the better the performance.
Acute trusts:
Category one 14th The Royal Orthopaedic, Birmingham 1.97
Category two
27 Robert Jones & Agnes Hunt Orthopaedic 2.31
Category three:
33 Dudley Group 1.90
36 Walsall Healthcare 1.97
=46 Birmingham Women’s & Children’s 2.1
=79 Royal Wolverhampton 2.45
=83 University Hospitals of North Midlands 2.47
88 Sandwell & West Birmingham Hospitals 2.49
Category four:110 Worcestershire Acute Hospitals 2.68
113 The Shrewsbury & Telford Hospital 2.72
Non-acute trusts:
Category one:
1 North Staffordshire Combined Healthcare 1.73
2 Midlands Partnership 1.74
Category two:
=17 Shropshire Community Health 2.16
Category four:
=46 Black Country Healthcare 2.67
55 Birmingham & Solihull Mental Health 2.90
61 Birmingham Community Healthcare 3.34
Ambulance trusts:
Category one
1 North West 1.82
2 East Midlands 1.84
3 Yorkshire 1.86
Category two
4 South East Coast 2.28
5 North East 2.32
Category three
6 West Midlands 2.15
7 London 2.47
Category four
8 South Central 2.75
9 South Western 2.91
10 East of England 3.02
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