Dozen operations cancelled in 1 week

MORE than a dozen operations were cancelled in less than a week at Nuneaton’s underpressure hospital.

In what was an unprecedented move, NHS bosses ordered all non-urgent surgery to be cancelled at hospitals across the country and this has impacted on patients at the George Eliot Hospital.

Latest figures suggest that between Friday, January 5 until Thursday, January 11, the ‘Eliot was forced to postpone 13 operations.

This was done with a heavy heart according to a spokesperson for the hospital, who said: “We understand the impact that deferring an operation has and have worked extremely hard to keep disruption to a minimum; but have had to postpone 13 operations.

“All are classed as routine, non-urgent procedures and we aim to re-book all patients as soon as possible.”

Hospitals up and down the country have been forced to take the drastic measure in a bid to cope with the demand no only on it’s A&E departments but across the hospital as a whole.

Nuneaton’s hospital is no exception with ‘significant levels’ of demand on its own accident and emergency department, leading to long waiting times and patients being left on trolleys in corridors due to a lack of space. Repeated calls have been made by the Nuneaton NHS Trust for people to only seek treatment from A&E in an emergency, and to look at other health service providers.

Such high demand has put huge pressure on the staff at the ‘Eliot and Kath Kelly, its chief executive, sent a personal message to the workforce to thank them for their dedication in such ‘extremely challenging’ times.