Thursday 9 November 2017

Healthy Results for Northumberland NHS

It's no secret that I am a huge admirer of the NHS and the hard work and dedication of NHS staff is something that I am incredibly grateful for.  I was therefore delighted to see how this hard work has paid off for the Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust in a report I received recently from the Department for Health.

Despite the fact that over 14,000 more operations were carried out by the Trust in 2016/17 than in 2009/10, the Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust is rated overall as Outstanding, with 98% of General Practices rated as Good or Outstanding as of May 2017. There are also far more people visiting A&E than in 2009/10, but 94.3% of people coming to A&E were seen within four hours, and by September 2017 this figure had improved to 95.4%.  98% of people referred to the Improving Access to Psychological Therapies programme were seen within 6 weeks and 100% within 18 weeks, and these figures are significantly better than both the target and the national figures.

Funding for the NHS Northumberland CCG rose by 2% on the previous year in 2017/18 to £457.3 million, and next year it will receive £466.4 million, an increase of 1.99%. The Trust's workforce has also grown since 2010- there are now 128 more hospital doctors and 610 more nurses.

It is great to hear that the dedication  of our NHS staff is paying off and that our NHS services in the constituency are continuing to improve every year. I thank them all for their hard work.