Last updated 19:39, Thursday, 10 April 2008

NORTH Cumbria’s hospitals surpassed national 18-week waiting list targets last month.

It is part of a Government drive to ensure no patients in England wait more than 18 weeks from being referred to receiving treatment.

All hospital trusts in the country were given targets to meet before the end of March.

Although making gradual progress, the North Cumbria Acute Hospitals NHS Trust had been struggling to meet the national deadline.

The trust, which runs the West Cumberland Hospital in Whitehaven and Carlisle’s Cumberland Infirmary, has now confirmed that it surpassed the target.

Latest figures show that between March 1 and 24, 88.5 per cent of patients admitted for pre-planned surgery were treated within 18 weeks.

This was above the hospitals’ target of 85 per cent.

In addition, 94.4 per cent of patients requiring scans and diagnostic tests, were also treated within 18 weeks. The target was 90 per cent.

Chief operating officer Kevin Clarkson said this had been achieved through daily monitoring in each area.

This allowed bosses to spot delays quickly and look for ways to address them.

“A number of areas have had a complete system review of how they were operating,” he explained. “What we have to do is track every single patient so we know exactly who we are dealing with on a month-to-month basis.”

But he added that they must now keep up these efforts to maintain the new waiting times – and, where possible, improve even further.

This will involve drawing up detailed sustainability plans for each specialist area so the trust continues to make significant improvements, particularly the most under-pressure areas like cardiology.

Chief executive Marie Burnham added that countywide plans to move more services into the community would hopefully reduce some of the demands on the trust.