North Staffordshire Combined Healthcare NHS Trust

Introduction

On the second Thursday of the month, NHS England publish data relating to demand, activity, waiting times and national performance against constitutional standards and recovery targets across the secondary care sector.

On 11 July we issued our media response to the latest data. In this monthly output we take a more detailed look at national and trust level data across the acute, ambulance, community and mental health sectors. We track activity, highlight trends, bring together the insight of NHS leaders and frontline staff and explain sometimes complex waiting times data - one important indicator of patient experience.

We also explore the continued recovery of services in the context of Covid-19, looking at national performance improvement trajectories and trust level variation. Trust leaders and NHS staff know better than anyone that in some cases they are not currently able to deliver timely and high-quality care to every patient they see. At the same time staff are also working tirelessly to increase activity, a trend often observed in the data, with activity in some areas exceeding pre-pandemic levels. As the efforts to boost activity are often outstripped by even more demand, media coverage over the last six months has often focused on the slipping of performance against targets.

Sometimes more hidden is the improvement work that we know staff are driving at local level, making progress wherever they can. Each month we will therefore also feature a trust case study highlighting a recent change, initiative or innovation aimed at improving operational or clinical effectiveness.

Alongside our data dive, we will be tracking relevant political and policy announcements that impact the operational landscape of the NHS. The newly elected Labour government set out a range of manifesto pledges prior to the election, including a return to meeting NHS performance standards, and delivering an extra two million NHS operations, scans, and appointments every year. Within their first week in office, they have also announced an independent review of NHS performance by Lord Darzi.