From Board to Ward – September 2025
This month our Board leaders heard from Ben, who is autistic, about what helps him access and receive hospital care. Ben’s experience was welcomed and listened to intently as was a wider update from Saoirse and Ali from the Learning Disability and Autism Liaison team. The meeting also heard how we’re doing for patients needing urgent and emergency care, diagnostic tests and stroke thrombectomy as well as our plans for winter.
In September’s Board to Ward we share three highlights:
Ben’s story
Ben came along to share his story with the Board. Ben is Autistic, without a learning disability, and came along and shared a video explaining what it is like for him to attend hospital appointments. He gave a wonderful analogy of what it feels like to have sensory overload when visiting Derriford Hospital. Ben talked about the support he needs attending hospital appointments and how the Learning Disability and Autism Liaison team help him with this, making it easier, and said he would struggle to attend appointments without their support. Saoirse and Ali came along from the Autism Liaison Team to support Ben. Ben thanked the team for their “care, kindness and understanding” and in his video described doing an abseil to raise funds for the hospital. Board leaders thanked Ben for coming along and asked him questions about what else might be helpful in a hospital setting, his thoughts on a new electronic patient record and made an offer to help Ben make more videos that can be shared with staff to help improve their knowledge and understanding of autism.
How are we doing for our patients?
If you are a patient needing urgent or emergency care
We are one of the most improved hospital trusts in England for the number of urgent and emergency patients we see and treat within 4 hours but we have fallen short of our own improvement target. In August 2025 we saw 71% of patient within 4 hours, but we had hoped to see 75% of patients withing this timeframe. This gap is in part due to the delayed opening of Dartmoor UTC which had been planned for August but was delayed until 3 September and an increase in the number of people attending. The number of people attending the Emergency Department at Derriford Hospital has increased since 2024/25 by 2,065 attendances to date. Attendances at the Cumberland Centre Urgent Treatment Centre and our Minor Injury Units in Tavistock and South Hams are also up by more than 3,000 compared to last year. We recorded a mean ambulance handover time of 54 minutes in August and we aim to reduce this to 33 minutes by March 2026. This will be much better for patients being brought to hospital by ambulance and those waiting for an ambulance in the local community.
If you are a patient waiting for a diagnostic test
79% of patients waiting for a diagnostic test were seen within 6 weeks but this means around 1 in 5 patients on the diagnostic waiting list waited over 6 weeks for their test. Patients waiting for a Cardiac Echo, Barium Swallow/Enema, Sleep Studies and Neurophysiology are more likely to wait longer at the moment.
Good news on diagnostic waits …
A topping out ceremony was held this month to celebrate the structural completion of the new Plymouth Community Diagnostic Centre at Colin Campbell Court, which is due to open summer 2026. The ceremony marked the building reaching its highest point, a significant milestone in the delivery of the £22 million project. Staff and representatives involved in the development were joined by colleagues from construction partner BAM, commissioning body NHS England, alongside local MPs and Plymouth City Councillors, to mark the occasion.
The Community Diagnostic Centre will provide a wide range of vital diagnostic tests, scans, and checks including CT, MRI scans, X-rays and ultrasounds in a convenient community-based setting. By offering these services outside of Derriford Hospital, the centre will help patients receive faster diagnoses closer to home, reducing waiting times and supporting earlier treatment. Located in Plymouth’s city centre, the new facility will operate seven days a week. Benefiting from strong transport links and ample nearby parking, it will provide convenient and accessible services for people across the city and the wider region.
View the Community Diagnostic Centre building
If you are a patient with suspected cancer
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28-Day Faster Diagnosis Standard: 82% of patients with suspected cancer received a diagnosis within 28 days of being referred in August 2025.
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62-Day Treatment Standard: 65% of patients were treated within 62 days, underperforming against the national target of 75%. We remain focused on recovering this, particularly by supporting urology and lung services.
Stroke thrombectomy
Thrombectomy, or mechanical clot removal, is recognised as the most effective intervention for between 10% to 15% of stroke patients who meet the clinical criteria. Fast access to thrombectomy is proven to improve patient outcomes, reducing long term disability.
The National Stroke Audit SSNAP have just published their 2024/25 Thrombectomy results, this summarises the national picture for stroke thrombectomy across the whole year. It shows that the South West Peninsula had the second highest thrombectomy rate in the UK, at 6.7%, representing 229 procedures, the vast majority of which were performed at Plymouth.
That is higher than London (6.0%) and second only to Thames Valley (7.8%). The national clinical lead for SSNAP recognised this as a remarkable achievement, based as it is on a service that is not yet 24/7, and means that if thrombectomy is the appropriate treatment, you have a higher chance of a getting this if you have a stroke in the Peninsula than in London. The whole team at Plymouth were recognised, but we also know the reason more people get a thrombectomy is because of the health of a functioning clinical network, founded on the collaboration between the clinicians on the ground.
The next steps to go further will be to open the Peninsula thrombectomy service to 24/7 hours in the coming months, to work with referring teams to ensure all those eligible get equal opportunity irrespective of where they live in the Peninsula and very importantly that we improve the time from arrival in any of the Peninsula Emergency Departments to being transferred and receiving the procedure in Plymouth.
Our Winter Plan
We have a strong plan for winter which is focused on keeping patient safe and supporting staff wellbeing. We feel we are in a stronger position than in previous winters because of the improvement work we have done, for example more Same Day Emergency Care and opening new facilities, such as the Urgent Treatment Centre (UTC) in the Dartmoor Building, which opened this month.
The UTC is a walk-in facility and is available to treat injuries and illness which are not life-threatening but still require urgent treatment. The new UTC will provide treatment in addition to the Cumberland Centre in Devonport and Minor Injury Units in Tavistock and Kingsbridge. This increased capacity in the local area will ease the pressure on Derriford Hospital’s Emergency Department, enabling emergency medicine specialists to focus on patients who are seriously unwell.
You should visit the UTC if you have an injury which is not life-threatening, such as:
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Limb fractures
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Minor illness
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Sprains and strains
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Minor head injuries
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Minor scalds and burns
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Bites and stings
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Foreign body in eyes
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Infected wounds and cuts
The Dartmoor Building, which houses the new UTC, will shortly also become home to other key hospital services, such as the Fracture Clinic, Main Outpatients and Pre-operative assessment.
The aims of the winter plan are to:
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Maintain our commitment to offload ambulances within 30mins, to ensure our patients and families receive timely support both when they arrive at the hospital and when they call for an ambulance in the community
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Launch a robust vaccination programme and promote the flu vaccine offer to our staff and increase uptake by 5% and patients, where they are eligible
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Protecting care for patients coming in for planned operations and procedures
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Support the improvement of community services, for example the community frailty virtual ward so more patients can be cared for at or closer to home
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Proactively manage patients with respiratory illness so they can be cared for in the community and hospital admission can be avoided wherever possible
Thanks for reading. Every month our Board leaders meet in public.
