Bradford hospitals celebrate successful year (From Bradford Telegraph and Argus)

Bradford hospitals celebrate successful year

9:28pm Thursday 16th July 2009 in

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Hospital bosses in Bradford are celebrating one of the most successful years yet.

In 2008/2009, Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust outperformed its financial plan, spent £22 million on an ambitious capital programme, met the 18-week waiting time target, maintained cancer waiting times and met A&E targets.

Crucially, for the first time the organisation, which manages Bradford Royal Infirmary and St Luke’s Hospitals, met targets for infection prevention and control, seeing MRSA cases drop by 55 per cent and C.diff cases by 25 per cent.

Chief executive of the foundation trust Miles Scott outlined the key achievements and challenges faced at a meeting of the board of governors.

“We had a successful year financially with a surplus of £4.2 million to be reinvested and enable us to take forward our capital plan for the future,” he said.

“The really good news is that we achieved the infection control targets with room to spare and the trajectory continues to come down.”

Mr Scott said service developments over the year had seen the trust tackle serious underlying issues, such as a shortage of critical care beds.

“Since we opened more critical care beds we have not seen the cancellations of elective operations so that is improving the patient experience,” he said.

He said membership of the foundation trust had increased to 51,000 and praised the board of governors for their programme of work. “We have one of the most vibrant boards of governors in the country,” he said.

Also singled out for praise were successes in teaching and research, achieved in partnership with Leeds and Bradford universities and NHS Bradford and Airedale.

“It is a real success story for the city, not just for these institutions,” he said.

Plans for 2009/2010 include looking at opportunities to provide care closer to patients’ homes, continued development in specialist services and in the quality and safety of services, the introduction of electronic medical records, a second new ward block and main entrance, the development of Field House and a new MRI scanner and the refurbishment of nightingale wards and theatres.