HOSPITAL chiefs in Worcestershire are failing to hit “harsh” targets for treating cancer and heart attack patients and screening people for MRSA, according to a new report.

Leaders at Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust, which runs Worcestershire Royal Hospital in Worcester, want the organisation to become a foundation trust. This would give them more freedom from government to manage their cash and the health services they provide. The trust would become ‘a public benefit corporation’ which is still part of the NHS and would be held more accountable to the public through a council of governors. But once the trust becomes an FT, bosses have to meet a compliance framework set out by watchdog Monitor which regulates the work of all foundation trusts.

The trust is now measuring itself against this target although it will not be formally measured against this until it becomes a FT.

Mike Stevens, director of finance and business development, said: “The foundation trust compliance framework is significantly harsher in its judgement. It is black and white – you have either hit the target or you haven’t.

“We only have to have one patient we haven’t screened for MRSA and we have totally missed the target.”

Once diagnosed, all cancer patients are supposed to wait no more than 31 days for second cancer treatment according to the FT framework. In August, the trust achieved 94.12 per cent of times – 16 out of 17 patients received a second course of treatment within the time frame, missing the target.

Cancer patients are also supposed to be treated within two months of referral but the trust achieved this in 80.60 per cent of the time, treating 54 out of 67 patients within this time frame.

The trust has missed these two targets overall for the first quarter of this financial year (2009/10), hitting the 31-day target in 95.83 per cent of the time and the two-month referral to treatment target 81.52 per cent of the time. The trust is also not administering clot-busting drugs to patients who have suffered a heart attack quickly enough.

A patient who suffers a cardiac arrest is supposed to get thrombolysis within 60 minutes of a 999 call (the so-called call to needle time) to improve their chances of survival. The trust did this for eight out of 14 people who suffered heart attacks in August (57.14 per cent of the time) which is below the target of 68 per cent.