Thousands of operations cancelled since last year
Shocking figures show that in the past two years 70,000 operations in Wales have been cancelled for “non-clinical” reasons.
The information was obtained from the Welsh Government through a Freedom of Information request and showed that in 2017-18, more than 90,000 operations were cancelled in total.
Operations in the Welsh NHS can be cancelled for three different reasons – clinical, non-clinical and patient.
■ Clinical – when the patient’s health and fitness is too poor for surgery to proceed safely.
■ Non clinical – when the hospital cancels the operation due to issues like staff sickness or a lack of beds.
■ Patient – when the patient cancels the operation.
Over the past two years there have been more than 178,000 cancellations with almost 75,000 of these being due to non-clinical reasons.
The last year saw a 7% rise in operations cancelled with less than a day to go for non-clinical reasons. In many of these cases the patient would have already stopped eating and drinking in preparation for their operation, as well as arranging for childcare.
Retired driver Stephen Eddy, 63, from Gwaun-Cae-Gurwen near Port Talbot, has a knee problem that is considered urgent. However, on the four occasions he has been booked into Morriston Hospital in Swansea, the procedure has been cancelled – once on the morning of the op.
“They are really letting us down,” said his wife Kathryn, 64.
“He has been put on tramadol. Originally he had a phone call from his consultant who had looked at his scans and said the knee was badly infected. They will remove the tibia and he will have it washed out. Depending on the level of infection, it could be between three days in hospital or six weeks.
“The last cancellation was on the morning of the operation. They said they would call at 7.30am. When I heard nothing, I contacted them and they said that there was not enough beds so it was cancelled. The operation is supposed to be urgent!”
According to former nurse Kathryn, Stephen is her carer and arrangements had to be made with their children to support them both when he was expected to be recovering from surgery. However, due to the repeated cancellations, these have had to be rearranged.
“He is very despondent,” she said. “My daughter and son prepared to come down each time. She is a manager and he is a bank manager. It is hard for them to just take time off work. The hospital don’t consider the wider picture. I admit, I didn’t when I was a nurse.
“My husband is so laid-back, but the other day he turned round and said he didn’t think it would happen.”
Morriston Hospital director Rebecca Carlton said: “We understand the frustration and inconvenience when an operation is postponed and sincerely apologise to patients when this happens.
“Like lots of hospitals in England and Wales, Morriston has seen a period of sustained pressure and high emergency demand for patients who need surgery. This surge in the numbers of both patients with trauma-related injuries, and emergency surgical presentations generally, has created an increase in demand at Morriston Hospital of between 10 and 15 patients per day.
“Our clinical teams continually prioritise patients for theatre and regrettably this has led to an increased wait for some patients who are more clinically stable and waiting for planned surgical procedures. We are doing everything we can to minimise these delays and reschedule postponed operations as soon as possible.”
A Welsh Government spokeswoman said: “Every year the Welsh NHS deals with over 700,000 admissions for operations and other procedures and we expect health boards to do all they can to make sure operations and procedures take place on time...
“Not all postponements result in the theatre slot being lost, as more often than not, health boards will have other patients who can be treated at that time waiting on an agreed standby list.”