Cancer operations nearly halved during pandemic with staff and beds redeployed
Cancer operations were scaled back by almost 50 per cent during the pandemic as Black Country hospital beds were freed up for coronavirus patients, the Express & Star can reveal.
There were 184 cancer operations that were either cancelled or rescheduled at Wolverhampton NHS Trust, which runs New Cross Hospital, between March 23, 2020 - when lockdown began - and the end of April this year, a response to a Freedom Of Information request revealed.
This was a reduction of 47.7 per cent from the previous 12 months, when there were 352 cancelled or rescheduled operations in 2019/20.
Explaining the decrease, a spokesman for Wolverhampton NHS Trust said: "Due to the pandemic, there were 40 per cent less cancer-related operations scheduled in 2020.
"This was to avoid putting patients at risk and ensure that NHS resources, beds, and equipment were available to treat patients who were critically ill with Covid-19.
"There was also a need to redeploy staff to care for patients in our critical care units."
A Freedom Of Information request also found that there was a 29.3 per cent reduction in cancer operations cancelled or rescheduled at Sandwell NHS Trust, which runs Sandwell General and City hospitals, between 2019/20 and 2020/21.
In 2019/20, the trust saw 1,201 cancer operations cancelled or rescheduled but this decreased to 848.
The month that had the least cancellations in Sandwell since the pandemic began was June, where there were 28.
However, the month with the highest cancellations was in January, when the figure stood at 106.
Liam Kennedy, chief operating officer at Sandwell NHS Trust, said: "We did reduce the number of patients that were booked for surgery over the last year because of the Covid pandemic and therefore you would expect there to be fewer cancellations."
Walsall NHS Trust, which runs Walsall Manor Hospital, said there were 10 cancelled or rescheduled cancer operations in 2019/20, and nine in 2020/21.
However, the NHS trust did not respond to a request for comment asking why Walsall's figures were so low.
The Dudley NHS Trust, which runs Russells Hall Hospital, has not yet responded to the Express & Star's FOI.
Meanwhile, the University Hospitals North Midlands [UHNM] NHS Trust, which runs Stafford Hospital, said it could not provide a response.
UHNM said the FOI request would be too costly and place "oppressive burden on the authority".
