THE chief executive of Kennet and North Wiltshire Primary Care Trust has said the zero-rating on the star system for performance of health bodies does not reflect the hard work of staff and GP practices in the area.

Barbara Smith was speaking after yesterday's publication of the report by the Commission for Health Improvement, which categorises the performance of health trusts against a range of targets and progress indicators.

Trusts are awarded up to three stars, depending on their overall performance, and Kennet and North Wiltshire were in the unenviable position of receiving no stars at all.

Much of this was down to waiting lists for treatment at the Royal United Hospital, Bath, which has been in trouble for a number of years and also received a zero rating in the report, as it did last year as well.

But the £10 million deficit the trust was saddled with when it was set up last year has also played its part.

Mrs Smith said: "We were disappointed but not surprised by the results of the report.

"We started the year with a financial deficit but have now managed to balance the books. But sadly not in time for this to have any effect on the CHI ratings."

Kennet and North Wiltshire is not the only one to suffer from dependence on services at the Royal United Hospital.

Bath and North East Somerset and West Wiltshire primary care trusts have also been saddled with a no points rating.

But Mrs Smith is not prepared to shove all the blame on to the troubled RUH.

She said: "This is our problem as well and we have been working very closely with officers at the hospital to try and solve it.

"Three of the performance indicators were about waiting lists and they were affected by the problems at the RUH. But it is a system problem and there is a lot of hard work being done to solve that right now.

"It is unfortunate that the work that has been done is not recognised in the ratings.

"We have achieved excellent results in GP surgeries, with 100 per cent of patients seeing a health care professional within one working day and 97.5 per cent seeing a doctor within 48 hours. The targets are 90 per cent in both."

The PCT has also exceeded national targets in helping people to stop smoking and screening for breast cancer.

Mrs Smith added: "As for the future, we are planning for stars.

"As a zero-star trust we will be getting a lot of support from the Strategic Health Authority to ensure that we perform efficiently and we don't have people waiting longer than they have to.

"Finance is an ongoing issue and we hope to have balance within three years. We will be addressing all the issues this year and next year.

"There are some tough challenging decisions to make, but we will not shrink from making them."

Much progress has been made in cutting down waiting lists for treatment at the RUH.

At the beginning of 2002, 16 patients had been waiting longer than 15 months for in-patient treatment and eight patients longer than 26 weeks for an out-patient appointment following referral from their GP to the RUH.

By March this year, there were no Kennet and North Wiltshire patients waiting longer than 12 months for in-patient treatment and no one waiting longer than 21 weeks to be seen in out-patients, matching the national target from March 2003.