Covid rise sees hospital cancel non-urgent cases

THE Westcountry’s biggest general hospital has cancelled all non-urgent surgery due to a rise in coronavirus admissions.

University Hospitals Plymouth NHS Trust explained that due to reorganising its surgical wards at Derriford because of a rise in Covid19 cases in the hospital, non-urgent surgery will no longer go ahead.

The trust has apologised to anyone affected and has said surgeries will be rebooked “as soon as possible”.

Emergency surgery remains unchanged and will continue to go ahead.

Anyone who was due to have nonurgent surgery and is concerned about the change, is asked to contact the department or named health care professional they are under.

A trust spokesperson said: “We have had to cancel non-urgent surgery to allow us to reorganise our surgical wards, in the light of more

Covid cases. We sincerely apologise to anyone affected and will look to rebook as soon as possible.

“Emergency surgery continues to go ahead. If any patient is concerned, we would ask them to contact the department or named healthcare professional they are under.”

This week the BBC reported there could be a “tsunami” of cancelled operations this winter as the NHS copes with rising numbers of coronavirus patients.

Members of the Royal College of Surgeons of England say they doubt the NHS can meet targets to restore surgery back to near pre-pandemic levels.

Planned procedures such as hip replacements were paused to free up beds during lockdown in the spring.

And hospitals have since been dealing with a backlog.

In July, NHS England boss Sir Simon Stevens told trusts hospitals should by September 2020 be performing at least 80% of their September 2019 rates of overnight planned procedures and outpatient or daycase procedures.

By this month he said this proportion should rise to 90%. But the announcement by Derriford Hospital demonstrates the difficulities that exist and the hard choices that hospitals seeing rising Covid cases are having to make.

Data suggests across the NHS more than two million people have been waiting longer than 18 weeks for routine operations, with 83,000 waiting more than a year – up from 2,000 before the pandemic.

The news on cancelled operations comes as Derriford Hospital confirms tightened visitor restrictions again due to the rise in coronavirus admissions.

Chief nurse and director of clinical professions at University Hospitals Plymouth NHS Trust, Lenny Byrne, revealed the trust was “just about” to consider lifting some restrictions, but due to a rise in Covid-19 cases, the restrictions had to remain in place.

Patients at Derriford Hospital are only allowed to have a visitor “under exceptional circumstances,” for example if they are approaching the end of their life, or if they are an outpatient who requires a carer or supporter with them.

Among the operations that are being cancelled countrywide to give space for Covid patients are new hip replacements. Nationally more than 140,000 operations such as knee and hip replacements were performed in July 2020 – less than half the number of a year ago.