Hospitals fail on bugs

Vital targets have been missed at Stafford and Cannock hospitals, according to the latest statistics.

Figures released by Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust show it failed to meet targets for treating A&E patients, fighting hospital superbugs and reducing staff sickness during July.

The figures were released in a table, published in the trust's monthly newsletter, "forward together".

The table shows how the two hospitals are performing against Healthcare Commission targets and also compare how July measures up against year to date (YTD) figures collected since March this year.

The figures reveal that Stafford Hospital missed targets on getting accident and emergency patients seen within four hours of admission.

With 97.5 per cent of patients being dealt with within the timeframe, it was 0.5 per cent below the expected standard.

Meanwhile, the numbers of both MRSA and Clostridium difficile (C. diff) cases across the trust were above the permitted level.

Targets say the trust should be experiencing no more than one case of MRSA a month but the trust reported two in July. And with 19 cases of C. diff detected, the trust exceeded its monthly limit by five cases.

Meanwhile, sickness rates among staff in July were on the up compared with the YTD figures. Absence rates were running at 5.48 per cent in July – over one per cent more than the trust's own target of 4.5 per cent.

However, the figures do show that some improvements were made in July. Eighty per cent of heart attack and stroke victims were given vital thrombolysis treatment within 60 minutes of the alarm being raised – a big improvement on the trust's YTD figure of 46.7 per cent, which was falling short of national targets by more than 20 per cent.

And according to the figures, all the trust's targets on waits for cancer treatments have been met, along with targets for the treatment of inpatients within 20 weeks and outpatients within 11 weeks.

In all, 16 out of 20 targets were met over the month.

Commenting on the figures, Karen Morrey, the chief operating officer of Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust, said: "Hitting our performance targets is very important to the trust.

"There are still a couple of areas that need to be improved, but we are working closely with the relevant departments to achieve the national targets."