CANCELLING operations and missing waiting time targets in A&E has cost the troubled Royal Bolton Hospital at least £800,000, The Bolton News can reveal.

Bolton NHS Foundation Trust was fined £185,000 for missing its A&E targets between April and December and lost out on £600,000 funding when it cancelled non-emergency operations in November and December to ease the pressure on beds.

The data does not include January’s stats, when the hospital declared a ‘major incident’ because clinicians could not cope with the number of patients coming through its doors.

Bolton Clinical Commissioning Group will receive the fine, and will decide whether to reinvest the money back in the hospital or in other health services in the borough. The cancelled operations will be re-arranged.

Since the ‘major incident’ health bosses have rallied to try and identify the cause of the ‘bed blocking’, with a rise in the number of emergency admissions particularly among the elderly population sighted as a reason.

Yasmin Qureshi, MP for Bolton South East, described the current system of penalising hospitals that are struggling with demand as “completely crazy”.

She raised in the issue in Parliament, and has also met with chairman of the trust David Wakefield to find out how the hospital can increase the number of beds in A&E.

She said: “The current system is absolutely wrong and unfair — what do you expect hospitals to do?

“Things at the front are not right — with people coming into A&E — and on the other end with people not getting discharged, which is leading to bed blockages.

“That is not their fault, and is down to cuts in the health budget and more people coming to A&E.

“The other thing is that the CCG have no choice, they have to impost a penalty — they can’t even use their discretion.

“It is not because they are incompetent. Everybody is stuck.”

The Bolton News understands that through the developing ‘winter crisis’ the hospital was also forced to employ ‘expensive’ agency staff to bolster the number of doctors and nurses.

Simon Worthington, Director of Finance at Bolton NHS Foundation Trust, said despite the difficulties, the amount paid in fines was less than 2013, when the hospital was rapped for failing to meet its targets on controlling superbug outbreaks.

He said: “A&E penalties are capped by the standard national contract and the Bolton Clinical Commissioning Group is required to penalise us if we miss the target – it isn’t an optional thing.

“We will, however, be having talks with them about reinvesting the money.

“Overall, we are expecting to pay about £2m less in fines than last year due to improvements in performance on some of the targets such as reducing C. Difficile.”

Under government targets, hospitals are asked to make sure 95 per cent of patients are seen within four hours of arriving at A&E.

The Royal Bolton met this target between May and August last year, but since September has deteriorated

In December only 86.3 per cent of patients were seen in the set time — leading to a fine of £56,000 in a month — and January is set to be even worse.

Su Long, Chief Officer at NHS Bolton Clinical Commissioning Group, said they work with the hospital to help them meet their waiting time targets.

She added: “Patients have a constitutional right to be seen within four hours at A&E departments, in line with the NHS Constitution.

“There is a national NHS contract, which penalises providers if key national targets are not met.”

FIGURES: How the Royal Bolton Hospital did each month on its target to see 95 per cent of patients in four hours, and the fine received

April 2014: 93.6 per cent, fine of £27,400

May 2014: 97.3 per cent - no penalty

June 2014: 95.7 per cent - no penalty

July 2014: 95.4 per cent - no penalty

August 2014: 96.5 per cent - no penalty

September 2014: 94.98 per cent - £400

October 2014: 92.6 per cent - £45,000

November 2014: 90.3 per cent - £56,000

December 2014: 86. 3 per cent - £56,400