DEDICATED and hard working staff are helping to ensure nationwide improvements in the NHS are being reflected in Worcestershire's hospitals, according to the county's health chief.

John Rostill, the chief executive of Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust, has praised the 5,000 workers at the Worcestershire Royal, Alexandra and Kidderminster hospitals for continuing to cut waiting times while providing high quality care for ever-increasing numbers of patients.

Mr Rostill said one of the headlines in a new national report by NHS chief executive Sir Nigel Crisp was big improvements in the speed and convenience of services.

"That is certainly the case in Worcestershire," he said.

He described how, over the past four years, the number of patients treated, admitted or discharged from A&E within four hours of arrival had risen from 82 per cent to 96 per cent - while patient numbers had risen from 122,268 to 134,616.

"In other words, in each of the past four years we have seen more emergency patients - and at the same time managed to treat them more quickly," he added.

Mr Rostill said the Trust had also managed to bring down the maximum waiting times for those people coming in for planned or elective operations.

"The national target is that, by the end of this year, no patient should be waiting more than six months for an elective operation," he added.

"We came extremely close to hitting that target nine months early - because at the end of March there were only 65 people on our waiting list who had been waiting more than six months.

"Sir Nigel's report also points to a significant reduction in the number of people waiting more than 13 weeks for a first outpatient appointment nationally.

"At the end of March, we had no patients waiting more than 13 weeks for a first outpatient appointment - another major achievement.

"These figures are good news for the people of Worcestershire, and I hope we will continue to see further improvements in the coming months," he said.