HINCHINGBROOKE Hospital in Huntingdon is the second most efficient acute trust in the country in reducing the time patients wait in hospital for non-emergency operations. On all the seven efficiency measures assessed by a national healthcare body Hinching

HINCHINGBROOKE Hospital in Huntingdon is the second most efficient acute trust in the country in reducing the time patients wait in hospital for non-emergency operations.

On all the seven efficiency measures assessed by a national healthcare body Hinchingbrooke was among the top third of the 18 hospitals in the East of England - and in the top two for three of them.

Only on readmission rates within 14 days was it not among to top 25 per cent in England. But it still performed as well as the average, coming 37th nationally out of 180 trusts, and sixth in the region, improving on its previous performance in the category.

Papworth Hospital was best in England for reducing the length of stay and best in the region for cutting the length of hospital waits for emergency surgery.

The NHS Institute for Innovation and Improvement's Better Care Better Value results for the first quarter of 2009/10 show Hinchingbrooke to be consistently in the top 25 per cent of trusts nationally in terms of working efficiently with patients. The results aim to highlight those trusts that are making significant savings, while improving quality.

Hinchingbrooke has been judged to be effectively reducing the length of time patients stay in hospital, increasing day surgery rates and cutting the numbers of people who do not attend for appointments.

Chief executive Mark Millar said: "One of our priorities over recent years is to make efficiencies wherever possible, an example of this would be the widespread use of new methodologies such as Lean Thinking across every department in the trust.

"Making our work as efficient as possible will be increasingly important for the NHS in the next few years and Hinchingbrooke's staff have been extremely effective at thinking in this manner.