A GLOUCESTERSHIRE NHS Trust has achieved targets set by a regulatory body and no longer needs formal intervention.

Monitor, the independent regulator of foundation trusts, has announced that Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust is no longer in significant breach of its authorisation.

The trust, which runs Gloucestershire Royal and Cheltenham General Hospitals, had been failing to consistently see, treat and admit or discharge 95 per cent of patients in its emergency departments within four hours in 2009.

Whilst the trust addressed its financial problems quickly, Monitor intervened in May this year to force the trust to take urgent action to improve A&E waiting times.

The body have said they will step back from involvement after it achieved emergency department waiting time targets consistently for seven months.

In April 2012, under the leadership of nursing director Maggie Arnold, the trust launched its Emergency Care Programme to tackle the various factors affecting the four hour waiting time.

This included building new consultation and treatment cubicles in the emergency departments and recruiting more emergency nurse practitioners.

Trust chairman, Professor Clair Chilvers, thanked the staff involved for their determination in turning the situation around.

"It is a great tribute to what our staff and our partner organisations can do when they all work together," she said.

"Targets are an essential part of the way we work and help us to maintain and improve the quality of care we provide.

"We recognise that our emergency departments are very busy places and we will continue to look at how to deliver that very important service in the best possible way for the benefit of people in Gloucestershire."