HOSPITALS in Worcestershire missed out on £400,000 after consistently failing to meet A&E waiting time targets.

Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust could have received an incentive payment of £100,000 per quarter to spend on capital projects - such as medical equipment and site developments - in 2004/05 if it had reached the Department of Health's staged targets for seeing accident and emergency patients within four hours.

But over the 53 weeks, the Trust - which runs the Worcestershire Royal Hospital, the Alexandra Hospital in Redditch and Kidderminster Hospital and is third worst off in the country with a £23.8m debt - only met or exceeded the target on nine occasions.

The target started at 95 per cent in April 2004, rising to 98 per cent by January 2005.

On average, 91.8 per cent of A&E patients were seen within four hours from April 2004 to July 2004, steadily rising to 95.6 per cent from July to October and 95.7 per cent from October to January 2005.

The estimated average for January 2005 to April 2005 was around 97 per cent.

But in the first four weeks of 2005/06 the average shot up to 98.9 per cent - above the 98 per cent target for four consecutive weeks.

John Rostill, chief executive of the Trust, said in the last quarter there were three visits from Department of Health representatives helping the Trust look at reasons why it had difficulties in reaching the targets.

"We've improved considerably from April 1, 2005 and over the three days from Friday, May 6, to Sunday, May 8, we have exceeded the 98 per cent every time," he added.

"Out of over 300 A&E patients across the Trust only four waited over four hours on Friday, two on Saturday and five on Sunday.

"If we compare the same time last year we've improved by 10 percentage points."