HEALTH services across Oxfordshire were given their annual check-up yesterday – and not all of them got a clean bill of health.
The Oxford Radcliffe Hospitals Trust was rated excellent in terms of quality of service for the second year running, while the Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre Trust, Oxfordshire Primary Care Trust and Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust were all ranked good.
Oxfordshire Learning Disability NHS Trust was rated fair.
But South Central Ambulance Service NHS Trust dropped from good to weak, putting it in the bottom five per cent of the 392 health trusts assessed in the Care Quality Commission’s annual health check for 2008/09.
In the past year, paramedics got to 72.6 per cent of urgent calls within eight minutes, compared to a Government target of 75 per cent.
The figure was more than a 10 percentage point drop on the last figures for Oxfordshire Ambulance Trust – which preceded SCAS – in 2005/06, when 84 per cent of the most series category A calls were reached. It also failed in terms of management of heart attack and stroke patients.
A spokesman for the trust said since April 1, 74.8 per cent of category A callers in Oxfordshire were reached in eight minutes, an increase on the previous year.
SCAS chief executive Will Hancock said: “The results have confirmed that we still have work to do to improve services for local people in some areas.
“We have a robust action plan in place and delivering this will be our primary focus over the coming months, to ensure that our patients receive the high standards of service they expect and deserve.”
But Dr Peter Skolar, a county councillor and chairman of the joint health overview and scrutiny committee, said the trust was “failing dismally”.
He said: “We knew when it went out of Oxfordshire it would get too big and out of control. I would classify it as poor.”
The Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre was one of just 13 trusts nationwide singled out for praise for making notable improvements over the past three years.
Chief executive Jan Fowler said: “These results illustrate our efforts to continually strive for excellence across the board.
“We have made significant improvements and have achieved maximum scores in many areas.”
Trusts were rated on everything from response times and teenage pregnancy targets to financial management.
The Oxford Radcliffe Hospitals NHS Trust saw its financial management rating rise to good and retained an excellent overall quality ranking.
Interim chief executive Paul Farenden warned that despite reporting a surplus of £2.4m for the past financial year, a £44m “cost reduction programme” was planned for 2009/10.
Oxfordshire Primary Care Trust was said to have failed in some areas, including teenage pregnancy rates and chlamydia screening.
Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Mental Health Trust was given an excellent rating for financial management.
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