Trust Regains Three Star Status

27 July 2005

Chelsea and Westminster Healthcare NHS Trust has regained its three star status in the national performance ratings published by the Healthcare Commission (HCC) today.

Chelsea and Westminster Healthcare NHS Trust has regained its three star status in the national performance ratings published by the Healthcare Commission (HCC) today.

The Trust lost two stars in last year’s ratings primarily because we significantly underachieved on our financial management targets. Our main recovery measure resolved historical problems on the valuation of the estate, but for technical reasons could not be accounted fully in the 2003/04 financial year.

Trust Chief Executive, Heather Lawrence, said: “We are delighted to have regained our three star status. This is thanks mainly to the hard work of all our staff who have continued to bring real improvements for our patients in the past year.

The loss of two stars last year was a real disappointment for the Trust. We have taken the lessons on board and have really focussed on the reasons we fell short. The introduction of initiatives such as our 1,000 ideas scheme, where staff and patients have fed to us new and better ways of working have helped us enormously to move forward as an organisation.”

The Trust scored highly in all of the core targets set by the HCC.

The key targets are:

  • Achieved – financial management targets which require all Trusts to break even.
  • Achieved – 98 per cent of patients treated, admitted or discharged in less than four hours in our accident and emergency department.
  • Achieved – maximum 17 week waiting time for an outpatient appointment.
  • Achieved – urgent cancer referrals seen within two weeks.
  • Achieved – no patients waiting longer than 12 hours on an A&E trolley.
  • Achieved – hospital cleanliness standards
  • Achieved – national booking programme standards for outpatients, inpatients and day care, allowing patients to book hospital appointments directly at a time convenient to them.

The Trust was also in the top band in areas such as providing clinical care services and patient services which are marked on a balanced score card basis by the HCC.

Added Ms Lawrence: “The top banding for our clinical care and also our patient focus scores truly reflects the high quality service we are providing for our patients.” This is important as these are the last star ratings and the HCC will be developing a new way of measuring hospital performance next year which is much more patient focused.

We will continue to develop new ways of ensuring that we are the hospital of choice for our local population and the three stars status also puts us in a good position to look again at moving towards acquiring Foundation Trust status in the near future.”

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George Vasilopoulos