Annual Report and Accounts - Calderdale and Huddersfield NHS ...

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Chief executive’s statement
Chief executive’s statement
On August 1, 2007 Calderdale and
Huddersfield NHS Trust became a NHS
Foundation Trust – a very proud
moment and one which marked us
out as a top-performing Trust.
It is important that the
credit goes where it is due
for this major achievement
and the many others the
past year has seen – and that
is to our staff. This year we
have treated almost 400,000
outpatients, just under 90,000
inpatients and nearly 135,000
people attended our two accident
and emergency departments. Our
two hospitals are always busy and our
continuing success is down to the unstinting
efforts of everyone involved. Thankyou.
There is also an army of other people who are
invaluable to the organisation and who deserve
recognition for their work. Our volunteers,
supporters, members and Membership Council
play an important role and I would like to
thank them for their time and dedication.
Major achievements
Although these are tough times for the NHS
it is fair to say that our first eight months
as a Foundation Trust has seen some major
achievements. This report gives a little more detail
about these successes but they have included:
● Investment of £500,000 in a new
CT (computerised tomography)
scanner and CT suite
● Work began on a new £8 million pharmacy
manufacturing unit on the Acre Mill
site in Huddersfield, which will produce
medicines for people across the country
● Massive reductions in the numbers of
people waiting for hearing aids and
upgrades from analogue to digital aids
● Continuation of our major bathroom
refurbishment programme at
Huddersfield Royal Infirmary
● Doubling of the number of people
seen within 48 hours of first contacting
our genito-urinary medicine clinic
● Improving our financial surplus from £166,000 in
2005/6 to £500,000 in 2006/7 (£419,000 in the
eight months as a Foundation Trust), which will be
reinvested for the benefit of local healthcare users.
A well-performing Trust
All NHS organisations are now carefully scrutinised
across a wide variety of areas to ensure good
standards of care and effective use of resources. In
October the Healthcare Commission‘s independent
check on the quality of our services and the use of
resources was announced and resulted in “good“
scores for both areas. An important part of this
rating is our performance against key targets
set by the Department of Health. Many of our
performance levels exceeded national performance
standards. We have also complied with the
Healthcare Commission’s 24 core standards.
We achieved:
● A maximum waiting time for first
appointments of 13 weeks
● A maximum six months waiting time for in-patients
● 100 per cent of patients with suspected cancer
seen within two weeks from referral by a GP
● 100 per cent of patients diagnosed with
cancer were treated within 31 days
● 96.9 per cent of patients with cancer referred
urgently by their GP were treated within
62 days against a target of 95 per cent
● A maximum wait of two weeks for
access to the chest pain clinic
● 92.6 per cent of eligible patients received
thrombolysis within 60 minutes of an emergency
call for an ambulance against a target of 72.9
One of the most challenging targets for hospital trusts
is for a 60 per cent reduction in MRSA bacteraemia by
2007/8. For the last three years we have seen a yearon-year
reduction but unfortunately we were unable
to meet this year’s challenging target. However,
we are committed to the on-going fight against
all infections and hope that the many stringent
measures in place will reduce figures further, along
with the help and support of our local community.
We have maintained our reputation as a wellmanaged
Trust with strong financial control
and the surplus reported will be reinvested
for the benefit of the local community.
Overall, this has been a successful year for the
Trust and we are well placed to meet the continuing
challenges facing the NHS generally and, most
importantly, to deliver high quality healthcare services
to the people who choose to use our services.
Diane Whittingham, Chief Executive
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Calderdale and Huddersfield NHS Foundation Trust