OVERALL health services in Herefordshire are as good as most places in the country - and better than some.

In a check-up of health trusts across the nation, Hereford Hospitals Trust has been diagnosed as fair' for its quality of services and the way it manages its finances.

Herefordshire Primary Care Trust has gone one better by being graded as good' for its services and fair' for its use of resources.

Only five other PCTs out of 30 in the West Midlands achieved this result.

The merit markings announced by the Healthcare Commission were based on Trust performances during 2005/6. It used excellent, good, fair or weak categories.

Very few trusts were classed as excellent', the majority going into the fair' grouping.

Simon Hairsnape, acting chief executive of the PCT, said it was the fourth year the Herefordshire trust had performed well in national ratings.

It was one of 57 of the 303 PCTs in England to have scored excellent' when assessed against the government's new national targets, focussing on helping to improve the health of the population.

"The PCT was assessed against 35 new targets and fully achieved 30 of these,'' he said.

The success was due to the hard work of staff and the PCT's partners, including GPs in the county, he added.

At the County Hospital the fair' status for both targets matched that of the majority of trusts in the West Midlands.

The hospital had good marks for how long people had to wait for test results and for the admission of patients to hospital. It achieved most of the specific targets set by the Healthcare Commission.

But it was advised it could improve with speedier psychological assessment of patients admitted to accident and emergency who had harmed themselves, as well as recording advice given to pregnant women on the dangers of smoking.

And it lost out on the numbers of cancelled operations, said to be caused by unpredicted increases in the admissions of emergency patients.

The trust said all these matters were already being dealt with.