A recent announcement from Wes Streeting about the NHS declared North Cumbria Integrated Care (NCIC) was one of five trusts being put into an ‘intensive recovery programme’. This means that NCIC will receive a tailored improvement plan to help revive the trust’s services.
The announcement came after a number of NHS trusts were revealed to be struggling with historic issues, with the longest waits for care and financial problems.
According to the trust’s Interim CEO Trudie Davies, NCIC has faced significant challenges with staffing:
“The organisation has struggled to attract staff to work in the region which has left us compromised in many ways.”
We wanted to share a break down of what this means for the future of NCIC, and how the Trust has responded to this news.
Some of the changes the improvement plan hopes to offer include:
- Support provided by NHS veterans with a history of success.
- Reallocating resources based on need.
- Improving access to funding.
North Cumbria Integrated Care believes that, following the news, the trust’s performance is now “moving in the right direction”.
The trust released the following statements around their recent improvements:
- Referral to Treatment waiting times were reduce by 10% from 39,107 to 35,309 at the end of March.
- NCIC has received national recognition for being the most improved Trust in the country for the diagnostics six-week wait standard between December (47.0%) and February (27.7%) with sustained improvement to the end of March (23.95%).
- Cancer performance has improved overall with the Trust meeting the 96% standard for 31-day decision to treat. The cancer long waiting patients (over day 62) has also significantly reduced from 641 in September to 138 in March.
- A&E and Urgent Treatment Centre waiting times improved compared to previous months. With the trust’s £4m investment into urgent and emergency care and the planned opening of the UTC at CIC, further improvements to performance are expected upcoming months.
Trudie Davies, Interim Chief Executive at NCIC said:
“National and regional bodies have recognised the significant performance improvements made by NCIC over the past few months in all clinical services. The Trust continues to climb the performance standards rankings against peers and in recognition has been invited to share our improvement methodology with Trusts across the region. This lays the strong foundations required to continue to improve the quality of services and care we provide for our patients into 2026/27.”
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Have you had a recent experience with North Cumbria Integrated Care that you would like to share with us?
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