“Clearly this is disappointing news and the hospitals trust senior management will need to look at how this problem arose without the audit team picking up on it. However, there is still enough time in the year to sort this out, make sure that the accounting assumptions are in line with best practice, and that the new Chief Executive steadies the ship financially as quickly as possible.
Meanwhile I’m reassured that the new Chief Executive, Deborah Lee, has made it clear that there will be no cuts to current services and she is absolutely committed to continued further improvements to the speed at which patients are seen in A&E. The percentage of patients being seen within 4 hours of arriving at A&E has already increased from 77% to 91.9%.”
