£100,000 for West Suffolk Hospital as Trust meets A&E targets

16 July 2004

West Suffolk Hospital in Bury St Edmunds is to receive an extra £100,000 in funding from the Department of Health after it achieved national targets for waiting times in A&E.

As part of an incentive scheme, acute hospital Trusts across the country get an extra payment of £100,000 if, between 1 April 2004 and 30 June 2004, 95% of patients in A&E are admitted, discharged or transferred within four hours of arrival. 

“We are delighted to have achieved this target because it means that we are treating patients swiftly and effectively,” said Nichole Day, Director of Nursing & Governance. “Nobody likes to be kept waiting in A&E. People are usually in pain and feeling unwell, so it has to be a priority to make sure that patients are assessed and admitted to hospital or treated and sent home as quickly as possible.

“The £100,000 we have secured by meeting this target is very welcome and will be spent on buying a dedicated X-ray machine for the A&E department.”

A total of £500,000 is available to acute Trusts for meeting A&E targets. Between March 2004 and March 2005, Trusts have a sliding scale of targets for patient waits in A&E, ranging from 94% of patients seen within four hours to the final target of 98%, which has to be achieved by December 2004. For every target they meet, the Trust receives £100,000 of extra funding.

For the first target of 94%, 87 out of the 155 NHS Trusts across the country with a major A&E department were successful.

“We have met our first two targets, and I am confident that we will continue to improve our performance in A&E and secure the further three tranches of £100,000,” said Nichole Day. “We have been able to achieve this by increasing our staffing levels in A&E and redesigning the way the department operates. Previously, when a patient was admitted to hospital by their GP as an emergency, they would have to attend A&E before being admitted to a bed. Now we admit them immediately onto the Emergency Assessment Unit so that clinicians can begin diagnosis and treatment without delay.

“It is by implementing similar changes to the way we work that we intend to further improve the care we deliver to patients throughout the Hospital.”