PATIENTS are treated more quickly at Poole Hospital than any other district general in the country, according to new figures.

Bosses at Poole Hospital NHS Trust are celebrating after becoming the first to have no patients waiting more than three months for an operation.

The latest figures compiled by the trust show that, at the end of March, there were no patients who were medically fit for their procedure who had waited more than three months for their inpatient or day case treatment.

This excludes patients who have opted for a particular date because of work or personal commitments.

The hospital also achieved its other three key targets on waiting times for 2004/05.

It had no patients waiting more than 13 weeks for a first outpatient appointment and no more than 1,940 patients in total on the waiting list.

In accident and emergency, 98 per cent of patients were seen and either treated, discharged or admitted/transferred to another hospital within four hours of their arrival.

Dr Roger Packham, acting chief executive of Poole Hospital said: "Poole Hospital, along with other NHS trusts in Dorset, has achieved very good waiting times in the past, but getting down to a maximum three-month wait, while also meeting our other key targets, moves us into a different league. The maximum wait time is for very specialist cases which only the consultant can perform."

Dr Packham said Dorset and Somerset Strategic Health Authority bought some capacity at the Bournemouth Nuffield Hospital to allow some patients to be treated there.

He added: "This certainly helped us to achieve our target but our staff have worked phenomenally hard to meet these excellent wait times for all our patients. We are the major accident centre for East Dorset so emergencies are an unusually high proportion of our work. Hence, we never know quite what we will have to deal with next."

"It's been a real team effort, involving staff from right across the trust. Without their commit-ment and dedication it would not have been possible. I would like to say a huge 'thank you' to each and every one of them."

First published: April 6