Derriford Hospital are making real improvements for patients – reducing the times they are waiting for emergency and planned care.

Chief Executive Mark Hackett said: “I would like to thank all the staff and teams for leading, implementing and sustaining this improvement.

“Their commitment is both humbling to see and remarkable alongside our wider changes in the One Plan for improvement.

“We still have further to go for our patients but this is great progress.”

“A big thank you to staff, including those offering Same Day Emergency Care who are doing a stellar job of providing emergency care quickly.”

During August, they have opened two additional Rapid Assessment and Treatment Spaces, relocated and expanded the Same Day Emergency Care service and created a 22-bedded Medical Receiving Unit – all supporting a new model of caring for patients who arrive as emergencies.

Now nearly 68 per cent of patients are seen, treated and admitted or discharged within four hours, They have reduced the time to treatment for patients in the Emergency Department by an hour, reduced the time to admission for patients by three hours, seen a 33 per cent reduction in the number of patients waiting over 12 hours for admission and seen an improvement in quality within the Emergency Department.

There has been a reduction in falls and hospital acquired pressure ulcers.

Patient experience has also shown an improvement for the first time in several months with improved Friends and Family Test scores; an increase in compliments and a reduction in complaints

They have implemented changes for patients presenting with a fractured neck of femur (broken hip).

They saw a reduction in ambulance waits from three hours to one hour, a reduction in time to surgery from 42 hours to 32 hours and a reduction in length of stay from 14 days to 8.8 days.

This is all despite continued increases in emergency demand (the number of patients arriving as emergency cases) of 5.8 per cent in the year to date.

More patients arriving in the urgent and emergency areas are being seen, treated and admitted or discharged within four hours.