Call for ‘urgent plans’ to be made as Portsmouth patients face ‘unacceptable’ waits for treatment while NHS fights to beat the Covid backlog

The Society for Acute Medicine said the record number of people on waiting lists nationally must not be seen as the ‘new normal’.

NHS England figures show 45,993 patients were waiting for non-urgent elective operations or treatment at Portsmouth Hospitals NHS Trust at the end of May – down slightly from 46,298 in April, but an increase on 37,548 in May 2021.

Of those, 901 - or two per cent - had been waiting for longer than a year.

The figures also show that 1,049 patients were waiting for non-urgent elective operations or treatment at Solent NHS Trust at the end of May.

This number is up from 1,020 in April and 766 in May 2021.

At the end of May, the median waiting time from referral at an NHS Trust to treatment was 12 weeks at Portsmouth Hospitals Trust and seven weeks at Solent Trust - both figures the same as in April.

Dr Tim Cooksley, president of the Society for Acute Medicine, said: ‘The number of patients waiting for prolonged periods for urgent care remains unacceptable and must not be seen as the new normal.

‘Patients are being stuck for extortionately long periods in emergency departments and acute medical units which results in worse patient outcomes.’

He said the current heatwave and a resurgence of Covid-19 cases have also increased delays, while the NHS is also battling high staff absence levels, burn out and low morale among staff.

Dr Cooksley added: ‘Urgent plans are required for both short-term and long-term strategies to tackle the workforce and capacity challenges and must be a key priority for whoever the next person to occupy number 10 is.’

Separate figures show 1.6 million patients in England were waiting for a key diagnostic test in May – a rise on 1.5 million in April.

A total of 309 patients at Solent Trust were waiting for Magnetic Resonance Imaging, while at Portsmouth Hospitals Trust, 11,663 patients were waiting for one of 12 standard tests, such as an MRI scan, non-obstetric ultrasound or gastroscopy at this time.

Of them, 4,834 (41 per cent) had been waiting for at least six weeks.

SEE ALSO: Portsmouth has more emergency cancer patients than before the coronavirus pandemic began

Other figures show cancer patients at Portsmouth Hospitals Trust are not being seen quickly enough.

The NHS states 85 per cent of cancer patients urgently referred by a GP should start treatment within 62 days, but NHS England data shows just 70 per cent of patients urgently referred by the NHS who received cancer treatment at Portsmouth Hospitals Trust in May began treatment within two months of their referral.

This number is down from both 73 per cent in April, and 87 per cent in May 2021 last year.

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesman said: ‘Recognising the pressure NHS staff are under, we have provided a £150 million injection to help ambulance services, with the number of ambulance and support staff increasing by almost 40 per cent since February 2010.

‘We are making good progress on cutting longest waiting times and our community diagnostic centres are delivering over a million tests, checks and scans to help beat the Covid backlog.’