| HOSPITAL services in Scarborough were today branded as the worst in Yorkshire and in the country's bottom five per cent. The Health Care Commission , which compiled the report, measured the "quality of service" and "use of resources" of every NHS trust in the country.
Each was given a rating of excellent, good, fair or weak with Scarborough and North East Yorkshire Healthcare NHS Trust being rated weak in both categories.
However, health trust boss Iain McInnes said he was confident that recent changes would improve the trust's performance, and that basic patient care was still of a good quality in many of the areas that patients value most.
He said: "It will come as no surprise that we have been rated as weak for resources for the period from April 2006 to March 2007 given our well-documented financial difficulties.
"Equally, though, everyone is aware of the enormous efforts that are being made to address this situation, and our recovery is well under way.
"What will be of more concern to the public is the rating of 'weak' for patient care."
Mr McInnes said last year a number of patients waited too long for appointments, for technical reasons, and a number of areas were identified where performance could be improved.
He said: "I believe that it is of greater importance to the public that we met our targets in MRSA, which is something that everyone is concerned about nowadays.
"We fully met the Health Commission's core standards. We met all the cancer standards and we met the inpatients waiting targets. Our admissions management was rated as 'good', and A&E in particular scored highly."
Leo McGrory, chairman of the Patient and Public Involvement Forum, said: "The information these results are based on is at least six months out of date and nobody could be surprised that the trust scored 'weak' in relation to its financial performance.
"However, it is of major concern to us to see a drop in standard in relation to quality of service or patient care. Our forum has been saying for a long time that the health of patients could suffer if the state of the trust's finances becomes an obsession for managers.
"That said, we recognise improvements are being made and we would hope to see a significant improvement next year."
Jo Dent, the commission's head of North Region, said: "The Healthcare Commission's assessment looks at a wide range of areas, including those that are most important to patients and the public.
"Among other things, we look at adherence to national child protection guidance, identifying and learning from patient safety incidents, and having systems in place to reduce the risk of healthcare associated infections.
"We also use data on A&E and cancer treatment waiting times, cancelled operations, MRSA rates and the treatment of stroke patients."
Mick Pilling (writes)
Lets face it Bridlington Hospital is the poor relation, 12 months ago we were rated good, what with the Scarborough NHS Trust in debt due to poor management and lack of up-grading the Bridlington hospital now it is rated (weak) well that seems to be because of the lack of staff, no overtime, poor facilities & ban on recruitment, the removal of services at the hospital is classed as down-grading to the people of Bridlington. Since Chief Executive Iain McInnes as taken over all we have had is promises but nothing as materialised, the reopening of the MIU overnight as been delayed it as now been closed overnight 9pm to 9am for 13 months? Although a petition of no less the 22,500 was presented to the Trust in December 2006, now we hear that it will be a walk-in unit in the future, the future is a long time away with a Trust that has a record of poor finance. On a recent look round the Bridlington Hospital I find it is more like a ghost town with wards closed and very little been down. The Trust seem to be going all out to remove the Cardiac Monitoring Unit (CMU) from Bridlington and take the services 6 beds to Scarborough, this as angered the Town, that is why I have organised a massive protest March in support of keeping this unit in Bridlington, also under threat is the Acute Medical Services also planned to be downgraded or part taken to Scarborough.
What the Future of Bridlington Hospital holds is unknown as the Trust rip the heart out of the hospital. |