THEY have done it!Staff at Ipswich Hospital are celebrating today after it has been revealed they have broken the barrier of Government targets.Despite immense pressure on beds and having to farm patients out to other hospitals earlier this year the hospital has reached national waiting times and waiting lists targets.

THEY have done it!

Staff at Ipswich Hospital are celebrating today after it has been revealed they have broken the barrier of Government targets.

Despite immense pressure on beds and having to farm patients out to other hospitals earlier this year the hospital has reached national waiting times and waiting lists targets.

The hospital is one of the busiest in the region and recent figures showed they still had some way to go to reach some of the targets.

But today it has been revealed that every target has been reached in the time allotted.

Trust spokeswoman Jan Rowsell said that the 3,700 staff members pulled out all the stops to make sure anyone needing inpatient or day case treatment was seen within 12 months by the end of March 2003.

Also no-one waited more than 15 months for inpatient/day case treatment throughout the year.

All new outpatients were seen within 21 weeks by the end of March 2003, and all new outpatients were seen within 26 weeks throughout the year

There was a 100 per cent achievement in seeing everyone with a suspected cancer in the 11 cancer types currently monitored, since November 2002.

And 96% of people attending the Trust's Accident and Emergency department last week were seen within four hours, with 90% of people attending the department throughout March 2003 being seen within four hours.

However target times will continue to get shorter and the Trust will have to keep working hard to meet those.

The building of temporary wards and a new day case centre will go towards helping keep to targets as patient numbers rise.

Paul Forden, Chief Executive of the Trust said: "It's excellent news as we know that no-one wants to wait for treatment and care.

"These figures show that we are treating more people much more quickly.

"The background to these achievements - immense pressure on beds and the increasing number of emergency and urgent admissions - makes them even more impressive."

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