Hospital waiting times still 'outrageous' despite reduction says Macclesfield councillor
By Belinda Ryan - Local Democracy Reporter 12th Dec 2022
A Cheshire East councillor told health bosses he couldn't celebrate the fact waiting times for elective operations are starting to reduce because the figures are still 'outrageous'.
Cllr Steve Carter (Lab) was speaking after hearing from bosses at East Cheshire NHS Trust they were on target to make sure no patients were waiting more than 78 weeks for elective operations by next March.
The figures referred to related to three areas – gastroenterology, general surgery and orthopaedics.
The Labour councillor said he wasn't blaming staff at the Trust, which runs hospitals at Macclesfield, Congleton and Knutsford, and thanked them for their efforts.
"I appreciate the pressures you're under from Covid, staffing and sicknesses and the long period of neglect in terms of finances for the National Health Service and you're obviously trying your hardest," he said.
"We're looking at the neglect of a fine system filled with dedicated and wonderful people, but these figures are outrageous and I can't celebrate them.
"Although you've worked really hard to achieve this, we can't celebrate this. We're talking about a two year waiting list. We're talking about you're setting targets that have one and a half year waits and, really, we shouldn't be waiting anywhere near that time. If you're poorly you should get access."
The Hurdsfield councillor was reacting to a presentation given by Fiona Walton, deputy director of operations at East Cheshire Trust, to the council's scrutiny committee.
Ms Walton told councillors: "We had an ask for June last year to make sure that we didn't have any patients waiting more than 104 weeks for any outpatient or elective in-patient theatre… and we achieved that target last June.
"The next target that we have, was to make sure that there is nobody waiting more than 78 weeks when we get to March 2023, so we are on track to deliver that target."
She added: "We're not happy that we're sitting at 78 weeks and we want to keep moving forward and try and get back to people waiting a lot, lot less than that."
She said much of the backlog had been created by Covid when a lot of outpatient services ceased and added that some patients waiting for treatment were still reluctant to go to hospital because of Covid fears.
Adele Gatley, from the Trust, told the committee they had implemented a number of initiatives to help bring down waiting list times, and had turned to the independent sector for help in gastroenterology.
"We've worked really closely with our independent sector colleagues, and they've been able to support us seeing patients quicker and sooner," she said.
She told the committee that, with regard to general surgery, there had been workforce pressures 'so we've got additional locums in place at the moment to try and see and treat our patients quickly'.
Cllr Carter had also asked how long a cancer patient would have to wait.
He was told, in terms of cancer, outpatient appointments are predominantly done within two weeks – although with breast cancer the Trust was struggling to meet that two week target.
In terms of actual treatment given, the target is 62 days from referral to treatment for cancer diagnosis.
The quoted waiting times in all areas are target wait times by which a patient should be seen – it does not mean all patients will have to wait that time.
The Department of Health and Social Care did not respond to Macclesfield Nub News' request for comment.
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