A HEALTH chief has warned that hospital referral waiting times in Herefordshire could be "potentially the worst in the NHS."

For the past year the Wye Valley NHS Trust has not been reporting its data of how long patients are waiting from when they are referred by their GP to when they are treated in hospital.

The national expectation is that at least 92 percent of patients are treated within 18 weeks of a routine GP referral. In addition, no patient should wait more than a maximum of 52 weeks from referral.

But for Wye Valley Trust the figures from December show only 68 percent were seen within that 18-week timeframe and figures of those waiting for longer than 52 weeks are yet to be confirmed.

The trust's planned performance for the month was 75.5 percent.

In a report for the trust's board of directors, chief executive, Glen Burley, said the data has not previously been reported due to quality concerns but that the trust has now returned to reporting the figures and started with December figures.

He said: "We expect our reported position to be potentially the worst in the NHS and are in discussion with the Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) to agree whether further resources could be found to allow us to improve the position in 2017/18.

"Our view is that the level of activity currently contracted will fall short and that waiting times will deteriorate further."

Mr Burley said a lot of effort has been put in to improving the accuracy of the trust's data.

He added: "Our priority has been to ensure that we are reporting accurate data so that our patients know how long they may have to wait for treatment and so that we can be effectively held to account for our performance and plan improvements.

"An added concern has been the insistence of the CCG that we should be fined for continued non-reporting, an intention set out to us formally in October with a three-month window to remedy the situation."

He said the trust should be able to avoid the hefty fine but said that the CCG has indicated they will hold the trust to reporting within precisely three months to the day of the letter.

But despite a significant pressure on inpatient capacity at the start of the new calendar year, it is anticipated that this position will recover to around 80 percent by the end of the financial year.

However, the trust raised concerns that the current agreed level of referral treatment time (RTT) activity commissioned by the area's CCG does threaten the continued recovery of the trust’s RTT position and that discussions continue with both commissioners and regulators.