High-quality care secures £209,000

Care for pneumonia patients has been heralded as among the best in the region at hospitals run by the Pennine Acute Trust, which includes the Rochdale Infirmary.

Its success means the trust will get £209,000 to plough back into services.

Pennine Acute was ranked fifth for pneumonia care out of 23 trusts in a report which put the spotlight on standards of hospital treatment in a bid to improve care.

The initiative, Advancing Quality, looked at five areas with a high number of patients, and found Pennine Acute was delivering high standards of treatment to patients admitted with pneumonia at its four hospitals.

The study looked at the care given to 1,089 people by the trust’s accident and emergency departments in the 12 months up to September last year.

Director of Nursing, Marian Carroll, welcomed the £209,000 reward, which will be spent in the division of medicine.

She said the initiative focused on the care and treatment patients receive rather than access targets, and described it as “a really big lever for change and for making improvements”

Dr Georges Ng Man Kwong, consultant chest physician and clinical director for speciality for the trust, said: “Pneumonia is an illness most often associated with bacterial infection where the lungs become inflamed and filled with fluid and secretions.

“While mild cases of pneumonia can be treated by your family doctor, serious cases of pneumonia admitted to hospital are associated with high morbidity and mortality.”

“Clinical outcome can be worse if there are delays in diagnosis or treatment with appropriate antibiotic therapy.”

The trust was also ranked 18 out of 23 for hip and knee replacement surgery, 15 out of 24 for care after heart attack, and 19 out of 24 for care after heart failure.

The fifth area covered in the study was coronary artery bypass graft, which is a service the trust does not offer.