Patients hit by matrons shortfall

The government has missed its target to recruit 2,500 community matrons to care for people with long-term conditions such as diabetes and asthma. The highly-trained nurses' care was intended to stop patients yo-yoing between GPs and hospitals in England.

But Healthcare Commission data shows just 1,600 were in place by the March target, meaning 60,000 patients did not get the one-to-one care they expected. Health bosses said they had struggled to fund the posts.

The aim of the community matron model was to give people with a range of conditions the specialist care which meant their diseases did not deteriorate and force them into hospital.

There are currently 15 million people in England with chronic conditions and they are responsible for 80% of GP appointments and 60% of hospital bed days. A plan to recruit 3,000 community matrons was unveiled by the then Health Secretary John Reid in 2004.

Local health bosses, working for primary care trusts (PCT), were then told only 2,500 would be needed as some patients could be dealt with by social workers as they did not need so much medical intervention.

But Healthcare Commission data shows that only 1,600 were in place by the target date of March 2007. It has meant that up to 60,000 patients did not get the care they were expected to have got, the data shows.

Katherine Murphy, of the Patients Association, said: "This is extremely disappointing. They are essential in keeping patients out of hospital and relieving the pressure on the NHS."

And Dr Helena McKeown, chairman of the British Medical Association's community care committee, added: "Where they are in place they have been a big help to GPs like myself, but the problem is that there is not enough of them."

David Stout, director of the PCT Network, said local health bosses would have liked to have recruited more, but the squeeze on finances over recent years had made that difficult. "It is still early days, but where they are in place the signs are that it is working well. PCTs are looking to recruit more, but we have struggled with the fact that there is not a large pool of senior nurses ready to step up to do the jobs and money has also been very tight."

The Department of Health said the model had proved "highly effective" and it was now the job of PCTs to ensure there were enough in place as ministers had allocated funds for it. Ultimately PCTs are responsible for delivering improvements to patient care and are funded to do this through PCT allocations."