Wirral and Warrington hospitals probed over A&E delays

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-merseyside-33022474

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An investigation into the finances at two hospital trusts has been widened amid concerns they are failing to meet A&E waiting time targets.

Health watchdog Monitor is scrutinising accounts at the trusts which run Wirral's Arrowe Park hospital and Warrington Hospital in Cheshire.

The trusts are already being probed after each said they were expecting to post deficits of more than £5m.

Both trusts said they "welcomed" the investigation.

Monitor said both Wirral University Teaching Hospital NHS Foundation Trust and Warrington and Halton Hospitals NHS Trust had "repeatedly failed" to meet the national target of seeing 95% of A&E patients within four hours.

The watchdog said the trusts "may not be able to solve these problems alone", and other NHS organisations may have "a significant role to play".

Birkenhead MP Frank Field MP said he fears Arrowe Park, which also had its finances investigated in 2013, is becoming a "broken-backed" hospital.

"My worry is that the patients in Birkenhead and beyond are suffering most," he said.

"It seems our hospital trust's already fragile finances, and now the creaking A&E department, have been plunged deeper into debt by regime-after-regime change of the management."

David Allison, chief executive of Wirral University Teaching Hospital NHS Trust, said: "We share Monitor's concerns around the difficulties we face and welcome their recognition that this is an issue which cannot be resolved solely by the trust acting alone.

"I would like to stress that Monitor's concerns are about performance targets; they are not about patient safety."

Warrington and Halton Hospitals deputy chief executive Simon Wright said the trust is "working towards getting back to the 95% A&E four-hour target on a sustained basis by the end of June".

"We saw improvements over April and have moved to treating over 97% of all patients within four hours in the last week so real progress is being made."