From waiting times to cash woes and consultants quitting to accusations of bullying, Worcestershire Acute Hospitals Trust has never been far from the headlines over the past few weeks. Health reporter Ian Craig met with chairman Harry Turner to cut through the noise and find out the real story.

TIMES are tough at Worcestershire’s hospitals.

Faced with the busiest winter in years, Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust – the organisation running the county’s two A&E departments at Worcestershire Royal Hospital and Redditch’s Alexandra Hospital as well as Kidderminster Hospital – has found itself struggling under rocketing waiting times, hundreds of cancelled operations and a predicted end-of-year deficit of £25.9 million.

And last month the trust was rocked when five A&E consultants – including the entire team at the Alex – handed in their notice on the same day.

Although chairman Harry Turner refused to confirm why the consultants had left – calling it “a matter between us and them” – he did not shy away from the pressure the organisation is under.

“It’s been the busiest year the trust has ever seen,” he said.

“I think to an extent we’re a victim of the success of the NHS. People are living longer, but as they do they have more medical concerns.

“And Worcestershire is a very attractive place to retire to.

“When someone comes in they have two or three medical concerns instead of just one.”

He said the trust was not equipped to cope with the increase in demand.

“The Royal was built as a district general hospital for Worcester,” he said. “That was 13 years ago.

“It now provides services for the whole of Worcestershire.

“What this has meant is demand has grown faster than anyone has envisaged.

“The Royal’s A&E is equipped for 45,000 attendances a year. We expect next year we’ll have 95,000.

“It simply isn’t big enough.”

The trust is currently in discussions around expanding the Royal’s A&E – which will include building work – but Mr Turner said this would not be “a quick fix”.

“I would be very, very keen to have patients helping us with the design because it’s their place,” she said.

“It will be designed in a way that’s better for patients and it will avoid the beds in the corridor issue.”

In the meantime the trust is looking into setting up a new urgent care centre at a vacant office building directly opposite the Royal’s A&E, which will be able to treat patients with less serious conditions.

While the trust has been battling a seemingly endless flow of patients, it also faces an uncertain future, with an extensive review into the county’s hospital services in progress since 2012. The revamp has been beset by delays and is currently on hold while the West Midlands Clinical Senate compile an independent report into the scheme.

Mr Turner said he was fully behind the commissioner-led scheme, but did not want it to detract from the trust’s day-to-day running.

“Really they couldn’t have picked a worse time to do this,” he said.

“We could have put it on the backburner but that would be ignoring the issues.

“But we can’t allow it to distract us from the here and now.

“We’ve got patients coming into hospital now and we’ve got to focus on that.”

When the review was announced a campaign group – Save the Alex – was quickly formed following concerns it would result in the A&E department at the Alex would be closed.

The group has constantly claimed the trust is “failing” and last week, along with Redditch and Bromsgrove MPs Karen Lumley and Sajid Javid, travelled to London to meet with health secretary Jeremy Hunt.

But how much place does politics have in the running of the county’s hospitals? “None” says Mr Turner.

“And I think our politicians would agree with that,” he said.

“I think some people have been trying to make this situation political for their own ends.

“The way the NHS is structured is as a devolved organisation.

“We’ve been told for three years by (Conservative health minister) Dan Poulter that this is a local matter.

“The time for debate is when we get to consultation.”

Save the Alex has also made claims of bullying against the trust’s management, but Mr Turner said he did not believe this was a problem within the trust.

“At the moment I’ve got no live bullying accusations at all and I’m not aware of a peak in accusations anywhere in the trust,” he said.

“Everything that comes to me has been investigated.

“We have 6,000 staff doing a very difficult job in very difficult circumstances and occasionally people are going to act in a way that is not normal, but is that bullying?

“When that happens we need to coach them through it

“When we do find someone who has been a bully we will investigate it and if there has been bullying we will take action.”

Nevertheless, an independent investigation into bullying at the trust has been launched and last week Mr Turner wrote to staff assuring them he and his colleagues were prepared to meet with them to discuss any concerns.

In 2011 the trust found itself on the receiving end of a damning Care Quality Commission report into standards of care for the elderly. At the time Mr Turner personally apologised to the people of the county and vowed to turn the trust around.

Pointing to some of the in-progress and recently completed projects, including the county’s new 22.5 million oncology centre – which will be officially opened by Princess Anne in April – as well as the Meadow Birth Centre and the under-construction breast unit, he said he believed this had been achieved.

“At the time I said I felt this was a turning point for the trust,” he said. “We had tonnes of claims of poor care and we just don’t have that now.

“I can’t tell you how proud I am of the oncology centre and we are already looking at what we can do to improve the quality of life for people in the county.”

But the work isn’t over.

“We’re a 24-7 society now,” Mr Turner said. “If you want bananas at midnight you can go to Tesco Express.

“People’s expectations are moving and we’ve got to fit into that.

“We deliver great medical care – but that’s what people expect.

“It’s the other stuff people want.

“Look at what happened on the high street – we went into recession and the likes of Poundland and Aldi were ahead of the curve. That’s what we’ve got to do.”

He asked people in the county to remember the trust’s management were patients as well.

“This is personal,” he said. “At the end of the day it’s me, and my wife and my children.

“We are human beings, we live in Worcester and we do not want to let people down.”

But he recognised much more work needed to be done.

“This is not going to go away,” he said.

“If we don’t deal with all of this this we won’t be ready when the next big thing happens.

“When I started in this role I said we’ve got to remember patients are the most important people, no egos or anything else.

“But at the moment, despite all the noise, it’s business as usual.

“We are taking care of patients and we’re doing it in a safe way.”