Cancelled operations surge in Dudley

Surgeons warn that delays to surgery can cause harm to patients, and are calling for extra hospital beds to be provided across England.

The trust cancelled 154 non-urgent operations, such as hip or knee surgeries, in the three months to December, the latest period covered by NHS England data.

This was a rise of 11 per cent compared to the same three month period in 2017.

The data covers cancellations that were for non-clinical reasons, such as bed or staff shortages.

Cancellations were down overall across England compared to last year, but the Royal College of Surgeons said this would be little comfort to patients whose procedures were called off.

A spokeswoman for the RCS said: "Recent NHS data shows that January saw the worst A&E performance on record.

"It is inevitable that this pressure on A&E will have a knock-on effect for bed capacity - and therefore on planned surgery - during the coming months.

“The RCS strongly believes that the NHS needs to commit to increasing hospital bed capacity.

"Without extra beds, we fear hospitals will struggle to properly tackle long waits for surgery.”

A last-minute cancellation is defined as being either on the day that a patient was due to arrive, after the patient has arrived, or on the day of the operation itself.

The RCS has warned that the drop in last-minute cancellations could be masking the fact that more operations are simply being cancelled in advance.

According to the NHS Constitution, trusts must offer a new date within a maximum period of 28 days after a non-urgent operation has been cancelled.

If they are unable to do so, they must instead fund the treatment with another hospital and forfeit payment from the NHS Clinical Commissioning Group that funds healthcare in the area.

At the Dudley Group NHS Foundation Trust, 6 per cent of operations were not rescheduled within that period - the highest proportion for the same three month period since current records began in 2001-02.

There were 20,145 last minute cancellations across England in the three months to December, a slight fall on the same period last year.

More than 1,660 of these patients - 8 per cent of the total - did not have their operations rescheduled within 28 days.

This proportion is the highest it has been for this three month period in 14 years.

"Waiting for surgery is a very stressful and worrying time for patients and their families, and such long waits are simply unacceptable", the RCS spokeswoman continued.

"The longer patients wait, the more risk there is that their conditions may deteriorate."

An NHS England spokesman said: “The number of cancelled routine operations has fallen, despite significant pressure on emergency services.

"Fewer than 1% of operations are postponed on the day, and nurses, doctors and NHS leaders across the country are also rightly prioritising emergency patients over the winter period.”