Missed NHS targets at Dudley's hospital trust lead to £3m fines

Delays in patients being treated and long waiting times in A&E at Russells Hall Hospital are among the reasons for the penalties.

It comes as the hospital looks to make cuts of £12million and reduce the workforce by 400 posts in two years. The fines are paid to Dudley Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) and the money is re-invested into patient care - but there are rules on what the money can be spent on.

A total of £1,444,500 was paid out in fines between April 2014 and March this year , which was down on the £1,611,403 bill in 2013/14. This adds up to £3,055,903 in two years.

The biggest penalties were for failing to get ambulances out on time after arriving at Russells Hall.

Hospitals are fined £200 for a delay of more than half an hour and £1,000 for waiting more than 60 minutes. A total of £687,000 was paid out on these penalties last year, compared with £917,700 during the previous 12 months.

The trust also paid out £335,300 in fines in 2014/15 and £137,895 in 2013/14 for not hitting 'referral to treatment targets'.

According to NHS guidelines patients must be referred to a specialist within 18 weeks of the hospital receiving a referral letter.

A penalty was also handed out after staff at Dudley Group NHS Foundation Trust failed to see 95 per cent of people within four hours of arriving at A&E. The fines totalled £192,000 in 2014/15 and £151,291 in 2013/14.

A spokesman for Dudley CCG said: "Dudley CCG applies fines to the hospital where there are areas of underperformance against targets. Financial penalties are a way of focussing attention on an area which may not be providing the level of service which we would expect for Dudley people. All of these fines have been reinvested back into the hospital, many with conditions applied as to how the money is used to improve care in key areas."

Dudley North MP Ian Austin said: "There should be no excuses for failing to meet care standards, but these fines are coming at a time when the hospital is being forced to lose one in ten staff and cut £12 million a year from its budget."

Trust chief executive Paula Clark said: "Like all NHS Trusts we sign up to the national NHS Standard Contracts.

"The CCG are obliged to levy fines in accordance with that contract if the trust fails to meet government set national targets. The value of targets and fines applied changes from year to year.

"We have an arrangement with the CCG the fines money is reinvested back into the Trust for the benefit of patient care locally, which is positive.

"The Trust strives to give the best most responsive service it can to patients and the levying of fines does not drive improvement in our organisation; it is the hard work and commitment of staff which does that.

"As an example, in 2014/15 we narrowly missed the target to see, treat, admit or discharge patients within four hours of arrival in A&E, 94.68 per cent of patients against a target of 95 per cent, and incurred a fine of £192,000. However, in 2015 we have exceeded the target for the last three quarters in a row making us one of the best performing trusts in the country for meeting the A&E standard.

"Although in 2014/15 some specialities did not meet the target to treat patients within 18 weeks of a GP referral (RTT), resulting in fines of £335,300, the Trust exceeded the RTT target overall for that year."