{"id":54137,"date":"2015-02-20T12:14:00","date_gmt":"2015-02-20T12:14:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/?guid=e7d3452da556d21e7a88c2a864faaff0"},"modified":"2015-02-20T12:14:00","modified_gmt":"2015-02-20T12:14:00","slug":"news-story-nhs-foundation-trusts-tackle-rising-patient-demand","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/?p=54137","title":{"rendered":"News story: NHS foundation trusts tackle rising patient demand"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"govspeak\">\n<p>Analysis by the health sector regulator shows that foundation trusts saw 2.7 million people in their A&amp;E units between October and December 2014, 8% higher than the same period last year. <\/p>\n<p>Subsequently, hospitals admitted 570,000 for further treatment, which is an extra 40,000 patients compared to last year. In addition, foundation trusts treated over 2.3 million non-emergency patients in the quarter, an increase of 7% over the same period last year. <\/p>\n<p>However, this increased activity, combined with the continued need to make cost savings and use expensive agency staff, is putting trusts under exceptional pressure.  <\/p>\n<p>For example, ambulance foundation trusts dealt with 933,000 calls, a 13% increase compared to the same period last year, but some have staff vacancy rates of up to 24%.<br \/>\nThe 149 foundation trusts (which make up nearly two-thirds of all NHS trusts) have failed to meet national waiting times targets for A&amp;E, routine and cancer care for 3 successive quarters.  <\/p>\n<p>Dr David Bennett, Chief Executive at Monitor, said:  <\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p class=\"last-child\">Trusts are working harder than ever to overcome the challenges they face while still meeting patients\u2019 expectations for quality care. However, the NHS needs to move rapidly towards more joined-up, efficient models of care if it is to deal with this continuing growth in demand for services.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>A report to Monitor\u2019s board on the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gov.uk\/government\/publications\/nhs-foundation-trusts-quarterly-performance-report-quarter-3-201415\">performance of the foundation trust sector<\/a> over the 9 months ended 31 December 2014 found: <\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>the sector reported a deficit of \u00a3321m which was 5 times more than planned; 78 FTs (53%) were in deficit, of which 60 were acute trusts<\/li>\n<li>the sector as a whole failed the A&amp;E waiting time target of seeing 95% patients within 4 hours for the calendar year 2014<\/li>\n<li>trusts met some cancer waiting times targets for 62 day screening services, 31 first days treatment and 2-week referrals<\/li>\n<li>42,600 people \u2013 an increase of 134% &#8211; waited on a trolley for more than 4 hours between the decision to admit them to A&amp;E and their arrival on a ward, due to reduced bed availability between October and December 2014<\/li>\n<li>there was an 8% increase (158,000 to 171,000) in the number of journeys made by foundation trust ambulance services<\/li>\n<li>trusts had a combined waiting list of 1.65 million, which was 40,000 less than between July and September 2014, but still 2.5% higher than last year<\/li>\n<li>trusts spent \u00a3419 million more on staff than planned because of high use of contract and agency staff<\/li>\n<li>trusts made \u00a3810 million worth of cost savings which is \u00a3210 million less than planned <\/li>\n<li>Monitor took regulatory action against 28 trusts (19% of the sector) because of governance or financial concerns<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>NHS foundation trusts are working hard to provide patients with quality care in the face of sustained operational and financial pressures, according to Monitor.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54137"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=54137"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54137\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=54137"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=54137"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=54137"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}