North Cumbria Integrated Care directors met at the Cumberland Infirmary in Carlisle on Wednesday.
The NHS trust is responsible for a range of health services in the area, from acute hospitals to child development.
The meeting of North Cumbria Integrated Care directors, which took place on Wednesday. (Image: Newsquest)
Interim Chief Executive Trudie Davies brought a report to the meeting updating the board of directors on her work as well as challenges and successes in the trust over the past month.
The report revealed that patients spending more than 12 hours in Emergency Departments increased from 7.9 per cent in August to nine per cent in September.
It is one of several aspects of performance that the trust aims to improve upon as well as cancer performance and Referral to Treatment Times.
Ms Davies said: “We’ve got some prioritisation that supports our improvement plan. We are focussing our intention on quality and safety through the delivery of improved performance.
“We expect, when patients wait less time, they will recover quicker and have a better experience so that is why we need to spend our money most wisely and you will see we’ve prioritised some of that.”
NCIC is redirecting £2.1 million to help improve on these areas and bring performance back to planned levels.
The Cumberland Infirmary Hospital in Carlisle. (Image: Newsquest)
Funds are being redirected to improve on performance figures and address the rating the trust received from the National Oversight Framework earlier this year.
Referral to Treatment Times of 52 weeks have decreased to 1.6 per cent in November but the trust hopes to bring the figure down to 1.4 per cent by March.
It is hoped that redirected funds and a renewed focus will see a “stepped improvement” in RTT waiting times, eliminating 65 week waits by the end of December.
An NHS England recovery plan sets an expectation on trusts to admit, discharge or transfer 76 per cent of patients presenting at A&E within four hours.
The percentage of North Cumbria patients seen within four hours fell from 67 per cent in August to 62.7 per cent in September.
Interim Chief Executive Trudie Davies told governors in September that the trust is on an improvement journey. (Image: Newsquest staff)
Trust bosses hope that redirected funding will see its four hour standard improve to 78 per cent by January.
Funds redirected to cancer services will see an increase in elective care and diagnostic activity.
It is hoped this will help the trust improve on its 62 day performance.
Trusts across the country aim to diagnose and treat patients with an urgent referral within 62 days. Between September 2024 and August 2025, NCIC completed the diagnosis and treatment journey with 66.6 per cent of patients, missing its own target of 85 per cent.