Probe into dozens of cancelled Manor Hospital operations

Health watchdogs have called for an investigation expressing concerns patients were subjected to additional pain, anxiety and inconvenience – with some been told at short notice.

There were 114 non-urgent elective procedures cancelled between Monday, March 20, and Friday, March 31.

Work preparing a new intensive treatment unit was also blamed for the postponements.

Healthwatch Walsall (HW) has referred the matter to Walsall Council’s health scrutiny group requesting they delve into the matter further.

They have also issued an appeal to patients affected to get in touch and speak out about their experiences.

Simon Fogell, chief officer for Healthwatch Walsall, said: “Most pre‐planned elective surgery at the hospital was cancelled at the end of March and yet many of those affected were told only one or two weeks before.

“We have now received assurances from the Trust that no one’s health was made worse by the delays, but we’re very keen to monitor this on behalf of the public.

“People who had operations booked for many weeks now face further delay and may suffer additional anxiety and pain as well as huge inconvenience."

He added: "Most of the operations have now been re-booked and will take place before the end of April.

“But we’ll have further discussions with the Trust to seek assurances that any decision to cancel operations in future is better planned to ensure patients are not subject to such inconvenience.

John Taylor, Healthwatch Walsall chair, said: “We recognise the financial and operational challenges facing the NHS.

“But we’re concerned that money is being put before care and that lack of planning and consultation is damaging patient confidence."

In response, Amir Khan, Walsall Healthcare NHS Trust Medical Director, said: “Firstly, we would like to apologise to anyone affected by the cancellation of non-urgent surgery as we appreciate that it can cause anxiety and is an inconvenience when patients, their carers and families have had to make plans. We want to assure patients that such a decision is never taken lightly but may be necessary due to a number of factors.

“In this instance we took the decision to scale back non-clinically urgent planned surgery for a short period for two reasons – we needed to make some changes in preparation for the building work on our new Critical Care Unit and we were struggling to staff all of the beds that we had open in surgery without using large numbers of agency staff. The cancellations gave our clinical teams some breathing space to make changes in order to cope with these issues.

“No urgent cases or cancer surgery were cancelled and the majority of the operations have now been rescheduled to take place before the end of this month.”

Walsall Healthwatch has stated any patient wishing to get in touch to talk about a cancelled operation can email info@healthwatchwalsall.co.uk or call 0800 470 1660.