HARD work, effort and increased efficiency have helped Worcestershire Acute Hospital NHS Trust hit its Accident and Emergency performance targets.

Following reports that hospitals across Britain rigged figures to show a cut in casualty waiting times, the trust has assured the Evening News of its own clean bill of health.

Last month, the trust hit key targets - admitting, discharging and transferring all accident and emergency patients within four hours.

"We've had no extra staff and no cancelled operations," said a defiant Richard Haynes, spokesman for the trust.

His comments came after the publication of internal Department of Health documents in The Observer detailing how A&E departments drafted in extra staff and even cancelled operations to free up casualty beds during a seven-day period at the end of March, when performance tests were conducted.

Mr Haynes said efficient, effective hard work from staff had resulted in hitting levels, along with the trust's involvement in the Emergency Services Collaborative and the work of its Rapid Response Team.

"The collaborative is essentially a pilot scheme which looks at efficient ways of working practices and assessing patients needs quickly," he said.

"The response team allows some elderly patients to be quickly assessed by social services, which means they often don't have to be kept in hospital overnight."

Worcester City MP Mike Foster said he had not seen any evidence of wrongdoing from the trust, which runs Worcestershire Royal Hospital, Redditch's Alexandra Hospital and Kidderminster Hospital.

He said: "We rely upon official statistics to judge the performance of hospitals, we want to see shorter A&E waiting times and waiting lists, but not it they have been manufactured by management.

"Those caught doing so are taking a grave risk, but I've certainly not seen any evidence for the Worcestershire trust to be singled out."