Mental health waiting list rose by 20% in year

FIGURES SHOW 285 PEOPLE HAD TO WAIT FOUR MONTHS

ALMOST 300 patients have been left waiting more than four months for their first appointment with mental health or disability services in the North East.

New figures have revealed that waiting times for the Northumberland, Tyne and Wear NHS Foundation Trust’s community services have increased by 20% since this time last year.

As of March 31, there were 285 patients who had been waiting more than 18 weeks for their first contact with an adult or older people’s community service.

Despite the trust being named provider of the year at the prestigious Health Service Journal (HSJ) Awards in 2017, bosses say they are struggling to keep up with demand.

Anna Foster, the trust’s deputy director of commissioning and quality assurance, admitted to Newcastle City Council on Monday that it was ‘285 people too many.’

She said: “Because of the resources we have available and the demand, we have struggled to keep up with the demand that is there for our services.”

Ms Foster added that frontline staff need to be freed up from doing unnecessary duties, like paperwork and attending meetings, so they can spend more time with patients, but that it was ‘not as easy as saying that we need more money.’

People living in Northumberland faced the longest waits, with 13% of people waiting more than 18 weeks.

Newcastle performed far better, at 2.3% in March, but the number of children missing the waiting time target has increased significantly from just 4% last year to 13% now. However, that is still far better than in Sunderland or South Tyneside – whose figures stand at 42% and 56% respectively.

Lisa Quinn, the trust’s executive director of commissioning and quality assurance, told the council’s health scrutiny committee: “Don’t go away with the thought that we aren’t meeting the urgent and crisis need – we are prioritising that. But we want to get the whole service working more proactively.”

The trust has outlined a three-year plan to make improvements, as it looks to reduce inappropriate out-of-area placements and reduce bed occupancy rate towards 90%.

Currently, the service’s bed occupancy rates are around – or sometimes above – 100% capacity.

Bosses are seeking to achieve the 18-weeks-totreatment standard for children and young people’s services across the board. The trust is also specifically targeting waiting time reductions in the Adult Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder Diagnosis Service, the Adult Autism Spectrum Disorder Diagnosis Service, and the Adult Gender Identity Service.

Coun Mick Bowman told the committee: “You have done a remarkable job with the resources that you have. The measures we have looked at here can only improve services to a certain degree.

“There is a limit to what staff can do without feeling significant pressure and their sickness rates increasing as a result.”