A Norfolk hospital is battling to reduce its waiting times for surgery amid what its chief executive called a “torrid” time for the NHS.
The Queen Elizabeth Hospital (QEH) in King’s Lynn reopened its day surgery unit on March 21 - a crucial step towards returning to its full programme of non-emergency ‘elective’ surgery after the pandemic.
According to a report penned by QEH chief executive Caroline Shaw, the hospital is said to be “on track to ensure there are no patients waiting over 104 weeks” for elective procedures.
At a Tuesday (April 5) meeting of the trust’s board of directors, vice-chairman Alan Brown said: “In many ways we are so far off the national targets that it’s become kind of meaningless to measure against them.
“When you’re talking about 104 weeks, that’s two years - and it’s supposed to be 18 weeks.
“Of course, that’s not just true of us, that’s true of pretty much every trust in the country.”
Mr Brown said discussions had been held at a senior level on whether the QEH’s performance could be compared against other hospital trusts, rather than national targets.
“You can’t really measure ‘well’ against the targets, so how are we doing against our peers?” he said.
Chief operating officer Denise Smith replied that, as of April 1, it was now an NHS national standard to start measuring 104-week waiting times, while 18 weeks would remain the ultimate benchmark that hospital trusts aim for.
“We have done some fantastic work to really bring down our waiting times for surgery, but we recognise, in line with the rest of the NHS, that this is not something that we will recover in a year,” said Ms Smith.
She added that it was “a daily challenge” to balance emergency care demand against elective surgery demand.
CEO Ms Shaw said: “It really is torrid in the NHS. Huge demand for our services, a really tired workforce, a financial deal which the public believed was very good - but actually when you take off inflation and all the other financial supplementary issues, it’s going to be challenging.
“I just think we need to put that into context, and we in west Norfolk are no different to lots of other organisations in the country”.
She gave her assurance to the public that the hospital’s leadership was continuing to closely review its performance to ensure patient safety.
Ambulance handover times at the QEH have meanwhile slumped. In February, 30pc of handovers were within 15 minutes, compared with 41pc in January - a trend the hospital is aiming to reverse.
Covid patients almost double in a month
According to Ms Shaw’s report, Covid cases at the QEH and in west Norfolk “have increased significantly in recent weeks”.
On March 25, the hospital had 127 Covid-10 positive patients in its care, compared with 65 on February 19, and 42 the previous month.
In March, about 8pc of all patients coming to the hospital’s emergency department were taken to the Covid ward.
The QEH says it has nearly twice the number of staff testing positive for Covid-19 as neighbouring hospitals.
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