Urgent surgery capacity ‘back to normal’ by June in hospitals

in Derbyshire are aiming to return to normal capacity for urgent surgeries within the next few months.

The announcement comes as the county’s two largest hospitals look to restore crucial services which have been impacted by the intense demands of the Covid-19 pandemic.

University Hospitals Derby and Burton NHS Foundation Trust, which runs Royal Derby Hospital, said it hopes to be back to 80% of its pre-pandemic theatre capacity by the end of April, with Chesterfield Royal Hospital expecting to reach 75% by that point.

Both hospitals are optimistic they can return to full urgent capacity once again by the end of June – with the volume of less urgent surgical procedures also returning to prepandemic levels by the end of September.

Angie Smithson, chief executive of Chesterfield Royal Hospital and executive lead for the Planned Care Steering Group, said: “We know many people have waited patiently during the pandemic and will now want to know when they will get their planned surgery.

“Now that the second wave is receding we are working hard to carefully restore all of our clinical services to meet the needs of those who are waiting.

“We are continuing to prioritise those in most urgent need – such as patients with cancer – with a view to seeing and treating them as soon as we can and are doing our utmost to ensure patients get the treatment they require as soon as possible.

“However, we believe it may be one year, or possibly two, before we are able to fully return to the waiting list position we had prior to the pandemic.”

Covid has forced health workers to temporarily stop or delay some services to protect capacity for treating people with the virus and maintain clinically essential services.

This has left more than 68,000 people waiting for a range of operations, including hip and knee replacements. As of January 2021, around 5,800 of these have been on a waiting list for at least 52 weeks – an increase from just one patient in February 2020.

Dr Steve Lloyd, GP, medical director of NHS Derby and Derbyshire Clinical Commissioning Group, claimed the second wave of Covid often had a greater impact on waitHOSPITALS ing times than the first.

He said: “There have been a number of occasions over the last few months where there were more patients with Covid-19 in our hospitals than at any point during the first wave of the virus.

“The pandemic has had a huge impact on our workforce, both physically and mentally, and so supporting the health and wellbeing of our staff is going to be incredibly important as we work to deliver our restoration and recovery plans. The best way to ensure the NHS can do what it needs to do is to continue to do everything we can to see that the downward trend in Covid-19 infection rates, serious illness and deaths continues.

“The rollout of the Covid-19 vaccination programme and people’s ongoing efforts in the third national lockdown is making a huge difference. However, I must stress that the health and care system in Derby and Derbyshire is still under very significant pressure and will continue to be so for some time yet.”