Walsall Manor fined £120k over A&E wait times
Walsall Manor Hospital has been fined £120,000 because patients waiting in the accident and emergency department have not been seen quick enough.
People turning up to the department this year have had to wait longer to be seen even though fewer patients have been going through the doors.
The trust which runs the hospital has been told to pay the cash for failing to meet its four hour target between July and September this year.
A total of 88 per cent of patients were seen within four hours or less during the three month period, although the national benchmark is 95 per cent.
During that time just over 22,500 patients were seen in A&E compared to 23,183 in the same period in 2013 when 94.1 per cent of patients were seen inside the target.
Bosses at the hospital have insisted they have been consistently busy but said there has been improvement in the last few weeks. New nurses are being recruited in a bid to ease the problem.
Ian Baines, director of finance and performance at Walsall Healthcare NHS Trust, said: "The trust has been continuously busy, seeing a high volume of patients.
"This has meant that despite an overall decrease in A&E activity, we still remain under pressure across the organisation, particularly in emergency activity levels, which has unfortunately meant that we missed the four hour target between July and September.
"Although we have been experiencing difficulties in this area we have seen an improvement over the past few weeks and continue to recruit for band 5 nurses across thetTrust, as well as working closely with the CCG and Social Care, which we hope will help alleviate some of the pressures we are experiencing."
The Manor has seen more patients coming from Staffordshire, which is expected to increase due to the situation at Stafford Hospital.
Salma Ali, accountable officer for Walsall Clinical Commissioning Group, which has imposed the fine, said: "We are aware of the situation at the hospital trust and are pleased to see early signs of improvement in performance over the past few weeks.
"We have supported the trust in a number of ways: as well as funding more social workers in the hospital, we have commissioned extra beds in care homes and more community nurses to help speed up discharges from A&E.
"Contractual fines are only one part of a number of ways we work with the hospital trust to tackle A&E waiting times. These fines are re-invested in the health system to improve services for Walsall patients."
