Dad may wait 15 months for operation on ankle
A father from Maidstone has been told he could have to wait as long as 15 months for a routine operation.
Adrian Sweet, 56, found out he needed surgery in his right ankle in December 2015 after an X-ray revealed a calcified bone regrowth that was making everyday work a nightmare for the self-employed carpenter.
The Meadow Walk resident, who builds exhibitions for clients across Europe, needs an arthroscopy of the ankle to restore movement in his joint, which regularly goes completely numb.
He was referred for an operation in May 2016, but it was not until March that he had his first pre-op assessment, when he was referred back to his GP due to high blood pressure.
He passed his second assessment in April but this expired last week and now he has been told he is unlikely to have the procedure until next year.
Mr Sweet, who had taken five months off work to ensure he would be in the country for his operation, said he was frustrated by the delay.
He said: “I have voluntarily not done any work since March. It is a waste of everyone’s time and money and my ankle isn’t getting any better – it’s just getting worse. Being told you won’t have an operation until the end of the year is not what you want to hear. I feel rather frustrated. I dare not take any more work on because I don’t want to get put back to the back of the waiting list. I couldn’t risk being out of the country.”
A spokesman for the trust said: “We are very sorry that it has not, as yet, been possible to carry out Mr Sweet’s procedure. This was primarily and previously due to the high levels of demand we have experienced for emergency inpatient care, which has unfortunately impacted on our waiting times for planned care, and other events that in this instance were outside of our control.
“We are working hard to undertake more planned orthopaedic procedures in our hospitals and are trying to carry out Mr Sweet’s procedure for him as soon as we possibly can.”
NHS guidelines set out a target to carry out of 92% of non-urgent operations within 18 weeks of referral. Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust is currently about 87% with a backlog at the orthopaedic department.
Last year the governing body of West Kent Clinical Commissioning group, which procures healthcare for almost 500,000 people, agreed to reduce the number of non-urgent surgical procedures as part of a package of measures aimed at plugging a just under £4 million black hole in its finances.
This ended in April.