Hospitals services in Bradford are on a sound footing as the end of the financial year approaches, a meeting was told.

Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, which manages Bradford Royal Infirmary and St Luke's Hospital, is reporting a surplus of £600,000.

It had planned to have a surplus of £800,000 at this stage of the financial year, however Trust finance director Bryan Millar said he remained confident a planned end-of-year surplus of £1.2million would still be achieved.

"I am confident now that we will achieve all targets for the year and achieve targets for 2008/09," he told a meeting of the Trust's board of governors yesterday.

Dean Johnson, director of planning and performance, outlined how the Trust was working well towards an 18 week referral to treatment target.

Currently the Trust is ahead of the national average of 64 per cent of patients being seen within this time, achieving a performance of 82 per cent for outpatients and 77 per cent for admitted patients.

The Trust has also hit a target for offering appointments for genito-urinary medicine within 48 hours of someone contacting the service.

The board appointed John Waterhouse, a patient governor, to the position of non-executive director, and re-appointed chairman David Richardson for a three-year term, along with non-executive directors Chris Jelly and Richard Bell.

The meeting discussed a proposal to relax the rules on the use of mobile phones within the Trust's hospitals and concerns raised by governors included having the same rules for staff and patients, how phones with video and cameras could intrude on confidentiality and how any policy would be policed.

Miles Scott, chief executive of the Trust, said any final decision would be made on the grounds of patient safety.

He also told the meeting that a review of maternity service by independent health watchdog, the Healthcare Commission, would be published tomorrow.

The Trust has expressed its concerns over the way data has been collected for the survey and said the outcome for Bradford's maternity service did not reflect its quality.

Governors said they feared the Healthcare Commission would not back down on its provisional rating of weak.