Steps agreed for Peterborough Hospital trust to reduce deficit A&E waiting times

Peterborough and Stamford Hospitals will make cost savings of £13 million over the next year in a raft of measures agreed by Monitor.

Monitor is the sector regulator of NHS-funded health care services, and bosses at Peterborough and Stamford Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust have agreed a number of measures following concerns about accident and emergency waiting times and the financial sustainability.

The legally binding steps mean the trust must; develop and implement a robust long-term strategic plan; make cost savings of at least £13m in 2015/16 to reduce its overall deficit; create and implement effective financial plans for the next two years; and fully implement its A&E action plan.

David Dean, Senior Enforcement Director at Monitor, said: “Peterborough and Stamford has a significant amount of work to do to secure its financial sustainability and consistently provide patients with timely A&E care.

“The trust has already shown it is capable of making considerable improvement, so our action aims to help it sustain this progress. However, the emphasis is on the trust to make sure it is doing all it can to provide quality care in as effective and efficient manner as possible.”

Stephen Graves, Chief Executive at Peterborough and Stamford Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, said: ““We are pleased that the improvements made to the service received by our emergency and urgent care patients have been recognised. This is testament to the leadership in this area and the hard work of our staff.

“In addition, we welcome the fact that Monitor has registered its confidence in our Trust and the board by asking us to develop and implement our long-term strategic plan. We have already begun the work on this, alongside the wider strategy work being undertaken in the local health economy.

“Clearly, we will continue to focus on our core role: the delivery of good quality care for our patients. This is backed by the Care Quality Commission’s report published earlier this week, which showed our Trust has moved from an overall rating of ‘Requires Improvement’ to ‘Good’.”

A trust spokeswoman said savings would be made across the hospital, with £13m of savings having been made every year for three years running.

She said: “There are hundreds of cost improvement plans in the pipeline – representing small-scale savings as well as larger scale, as every little helps!”