AFTER a week of national reports claiming the NHS is in meltdown with A&E departments across the country unable to cope with demand, we asked the top health figures in the town what the prognosis is for Warrington.

Chief executive Mel Pickup believes Warrington Hospital is in a better position than many other areas of the country after meeting the four hour wait target for 95 per cent of patients in the last year.

She added: “A lot of our performance is down to a fantastic A&E team.

“In the last 12 months, we were able to invest £1.4m in redesigning the unit and strengthening our staff by appointing six extra doctors and filling our nursing vacancies.

“We’ve also piloted a range of ways of working to enhance the emergency care service – from having a GP working with us to help direct patients who don’t need A&E to other services, through to our consultants working with nursing homes to pre-empt possible admissions to hospital and provide early treatment before an illness becomes an emergency.”

Miss Pickup added the wider picture also needs to be taken into account as an ageing population with multiple long-term chronic illnesses means patients are now ‘sicker than ever before’.

She said: “A&E can become the hotspot if our beds are full and we can’t discharge patients on the wards to suitable alternative accommodation.

“We have to keep working with our partners in local authorities and primary care to look at the systems we have locally and how we can further improve them.”

Dr SARAH Baker, from Warrington Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG), admits doctors are under pressure in the town but hopes new GPs will be recruited soon.

She said: “In Warrington we work very closely with the hospital and community services and the CCG meet weekly to check how the system is working which has meant we have managed to avoid the sort of headlines in other parts of the country.

“Doctors do feel under pressure in Warrington general practice but it’s definitely not because of the GP out of hours service.

“We have kept a close eye on it since the introduction of 111 (new non-emergency health phone line) but after initial teething problems attendances haven’t increased.

“People are sicker and have several problems so we needed more GPs to get it sorted out.

“In Warrington we haven’t got enough and we’re working with NHS England to try and get more and developing proposals where the additional GPs would have the biggest impact.

“Part of getting more doctors is also making it easier for patients to get appointments and we do want to hear patients’ feedback, good and bad, so we know what works and what doesn’t.”

Visit warringtonccg.nhs.uk.