South west hospitals fined millions over missed targets

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cornwall-32773485

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Hospitals in the South West are being fined millions of pounds for failing to meet nationally agreed targets.

Trusts are being penalised for failures over ambulance handover deadlines, accident and emergency waiting times and the speed patients are seen.

Devon hospitals face fines of more than £6.5m and in Cornwall a trust faces a payout in excess of £1m.

Clinical commissioning groups, which levy the fines, say they are in line with "national contract guidance".

Derriford Hospital in Plymouth faced the largest charge of £4.8m but recouped about half the money through compensation for exceptional emergency pressures.

The Royal Cornwall Hospital Trust in Cornwall has been fined more than a million pounds - at a time when it is battling a deficit of £7m.

NHS England sets targets each year with hospitals held to account by their local commissioning bodies.

A spokesman for Cornwall's commissioning group, NHS Kernow, said money from the hospitals "remains in the health system and is reinvested back into schemes that cut re-admissions and help people who are being supported by health and social care".