Consultant reassures those waiting for ops
A NORTHUMBRIA Healthcare intensive care consultant has reassured patients that “we always have a plan” and said that the Trust will keep elective surgery going for as long as possible, though he conceded that if the Omicron Covid wave leads to high levels of hospitalisation that could happen.
Dr Eliot Sykes, who is also the Trust’s business unit director for surgery, said throughout the pandemic its “multi-site model” had allowed it to minimise disruption to elective procedures more than most NHS organisations – and that this remained the case.
Dr Sykes said: “The first thing to note is that we only stopped operating for as brief a time as possible. There was always a feeling within the consultant body that whilst Covid clearly was an incredibly significant challenge we had to rise to, the NHS is not a single-condition service.
“Managing an elective stream alongside the emergency stream was very important to us from a patient care perspective.
“We have an a specialist emergency hospital, which is pretty unique across the country. And that allows us to concentrate the emergency work and to a degree, the Covid patients there, which in effect segregates them from the elective operating sites.”
Though waiting lists across the NHS are higher than ever, Northumbria is one of the best performing Trusts nationwide – as of October, 23,267 were waiting for treatment there. Dr Sykes said that since resuming some elective procedures in May 2020 – though they did so “cautiously”, he said – the Trust had carried out more than 26,000 procedures and not had a single case of hospitalacquired Covid-19.
“In my mind that is both impressive and, probably more importantly, reassuring to patients and staff,” he said.
Dr Sykes said Northumbria Healthcare was prepared for a difficult few weeks.
“We always have a plan. And that plan, again, has changed over the last 18 months, two years. It’s had to adapt. But we always have a plan, and and the plan has multiple gears and levels because it needs to be flexible.”