Annual Report and Accounts - The Great Western Hospital

TABLE - Wiltshire Community Activity
Point of Delivery Contract Actual
(Under)/ Over
performance against
contract
Variance
%
Community - A&E 44,336 46,507 2,171 4.90%
Community - Contacts 855,948 803,545 (52,403) -6.12%
Community - Emergency Inpatients 7,857 7,445 (412) -5.24%
In year the Trust secured from NHS Swindon and NHS Wiltshire £3.6m and £5.26m respectively in
terms of contract over performance for both the Acute and Community contracts.
3.7 Continued investment in improved services for patients
Following a significant £2.7m investment, a second Cardiac Cath Lab was opened in April 2011.
The work, which included refurbishment of the previous Cath Lab, was a significant capital project
designed to improve waiting times and overall experience of users of the service. The investment
also means that some of the more complex pacemaker procedures previously carried out in Oxford
can now be carried out at the GWH reducing the need for some patients to travel further afield.
In future years it will become more challenging to invest in large capital projects of this scale. As a
Foundation Trust there are no other sources of funding and therefore we rely on delivering
ambitious savings programmes to free up money to invest in new equipment and services. This
becomes more pressing as the Great Western Hospital approaches its 10 th anniversary when
some of the equipment purchased at the time of opening is now coming to the stage where it
needs to be replaced.
Moving forward the Trust will focus on generating a surplus to allow investment in services and
equipment thus ensuring that we continue to improve care for our patients both at the GWH, out in
the community and in the home.
3.8 Research and development
The Trust carries out its own research within our Academy.
Governance Standards set out by the Department of Health.
The Trust follows the Research
Within the Academy, the Trust has a Research and Development Team with responsibility for
providing advice, support and leadership on matters relating to research and development (R&D).
Under the direction of the R&D Director and Academic Dean, the R&D Department continues to
increase research activity at Great Western Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. The Team has
increased to include a R&D Administrator to ensure that tight deadlines for approval of research
projects are met.
Cancer research remains our largest topic area, accounting for approximately 50% of our activity.
However substantial progress has been made in other key topic areas such as Rheumatology and
Orthopaedics. Cardiology is now participating in a commercially funded research project and further
projects are being considered. Commercially funded research has grown within the Trust which will
allow us to self-fund some research posts in the coming year.
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