A PATIENT watchdog is calling for healthcare providers to work more closely together to turn performance around and meet government targets.

Bath and District Community Health Council, which covers north and west Wiltshire, says prompt action is needed to ease financial and resource pressures.

Chief officer Nick Westbrook said: "The time is long overdue for local health care providers to take a more holistic, joined-up approach to tackle their problems."

Instead of the healthcare managers preparing plans for their own trusts, Mr Westbrook would like to see the development of one plan for everyone in the area.

Among other things, this would show how each trust contributes towards meeting patient needs and government performance targets and would help deliver high quality, cost-effective services.

Mr Westbrook said: "The star ratings do not accurately affect the quality of health care delivered in Wiltshire.

"The quality of care has never been an issue, it is the number of patients treated and how long people wait to get treated which is the real problem.

Doctors agreed the standard of clinical care was high, but Ian Swan, a partner at the Bradford Road Medical Centre in Trowbridge, said conditions were better abroad.

He said: "One of my patients needed an ultrasound and went to Germany for it. He had it the next day, the operation in the same week, and was back home within a fortnight. It could have taken more than a year here."