NHS trust for West Suffolk Hospital in Bury St Edmunds among best in country for meeting four-hour emergency care standard

The NHS trust which runs West Suffolk Hospital has been ranked among the best performing in the country in meeting the four-hour urgent and emergency care standard.

West Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust achieved 88.4 per cent last month for the four-hour standard, a metric by which all trusts with urgent and emergency care (UEC) services are measured to either admit or discharge patients who attend an emergency department within four hours.

With a national target of 76 per cent in 2024/25, increasing to 78 per cent for 2025/26, the trust’s latest performance ranked it as the highest performing trust in the east of England, and fourth nationally.

Meanwhile, the trust, which runs the Bury St Edmunds hospital and Newmarket Community Hospital, has performed well in the urgent and emergency care survey 2024, with improvements in numerous areas ranking it ninth out of 120 type one trusts – those with emergency departments – in England.

Dr Richard Goodwin, medical director for the trust, said: “I am very grateful to our teams involved in delivering urgent and emergency care to our patients for their hard work and dedication to provide a significantly improved experience for our patients, their families and for our staff themselves.

“While improvements in our UEC services show solid progress, we need to maintain our focus to ensure our patients – particularly during the more challenging periods – receive the care they need as quickly as possible.”

Over the winter period from 2024 into 2025, the trust has been working to improve its UEC performance against the four-hour target, rising from 62.1 per cent in December 2024, to 63.4 per cent in January 2025 and 67.1 per cent in February 2025, which is always the busiest time of year.

For the survey, each year the Care Quality Commission collects feedback from hospital patients accessing UEC services, such as emergency departments or urgent treatment centres, about the quality of the care they receive.

The findings highlight the trust’s commitment to improving its services and ensuring that patients receive the standard of care they deserve – despite the pressure these services are under.

In no areas did the trust score worse than expected, and in many areas the trust scored ‘somewhat better’, ‘better’ or ‘much better’ than expected.

The trust scored highest in: the communication its staff provide to patients about their journey (9.7 out of 10); their condition and treatment (8.3 out of 10) and how clearly this was outlined (8.3 out of 10); involving patients in decisions on their treatment available to them (8.3 out of 10); the amount of time staff spent with patients (8.3 out of 10); and their overall experience whilst in the emergency department (8.1 out of 10).

Dr Ravi Ayyamuthu, emergency department consultant and deputy medical director for the trust, said: “These results show that the experience of receiving the care our colleagues provide to those who need us most is high quality.

“While some of our patients' experience waits longer than we would like, please know that when we see you, we will always do our utmost to help you and provide the standard of care you deserve.”

The results come after the CQC’s NHS Adult Inpatient Survey 2023, where the trust placed fifth nationally out of all combined and acute trusts.