Nightmare for hundreds of Midland
MORE than 500 Birmingham patients who saw their planned operation cancelled at the last minute in the first three months of the year were still waiting for their procedure a month later.
The figure lays bare the extent of the treatment crisis facing the NHS over the backlog piled up during the pandemic.
Figures from University Hospitals Birmingham (UHB) NHS Trust, which is one of the largest in the country and runs four Midland hospitals, including the Queen Elizabeth in Birmingham, showed 977 planned procedures were cancelled on the day the patient was due to arrive, after they arrived or on the day of the procedure in the three months to March.
Of that total, 56 per cent were not completed within the next four weeks, as NHS rules state they should be.
For the same period in 2019, only 2.3 per cent were not rescheduled in the next month, illustrating the scale of the issue.
It meant hundreds of patients were made to wait weeks – at the very least – after having a planned operation cancelled at short notice. UHB bosses have apologised for the delays but stress the impact of the pandemic has severely hampered its ability to cope with the level of demand for treatment.
It was revealed earlier this year that UHB had the longest waiting lists in the country, with thousands forced to wait for more than a year for nonurgent treatment.
The trust also runs Heartlands, Good Hope and Solihull hospitals. It has dealt with more Covid patients than any other in England and still has 220 with the virus.
Extra wards are being opened in a bid to treat more patients. But patient groups have raised concerns about
the potential impact on those being made to wait for surgery. A UHB spokesman said: “We are sorry we have to cancel or reschedule any procedure as a result of the demands on our services. These demands have never been higher.
“The impact of Covid on our capacity was felt very significantly during the first months of the year during this most recent wave of the virus.
“We are working very hard to care for patients, given these sustained pressures, by creating extra ward and surgical capacity on all our hospital sites, recruiting additional staff, and introducing new treatment routes, to help us get back on track.”
Prof Stephen Powis, National Medical Director for NHS England, says the backlog nationally is starting to be tackled.
He said: “We always knew the waiting list would initially continue to grow as more people came forward for care who may have held off during the pandemic, but the number of people waiting more than two years has fallen for the second month in a row, and the number waiting more than 18 months has gone down for the first time.”