Operations waiting list stands at 2,002 due to Covid impact

Of the 2,002 operations on the waiting list as of yesterday, 748 were in orthopaedics and 384 were in gastroenterology.

The pandemic has had a major impact, said Health & Social Care medical director Dr Peter Rabey.

‘We’ve had a huge increase over the last two years,’ he said.

Delays were a common problem in health services all over the world and efforts were going to be made to bring waiting times down locally.

MSG chairman Dr Gary Yarwood said its aim was to maximise existing resources.

‘We don’t need more doctors at the moment, but it would be nice to utilise the operating theatres that we’ve got,’ he said.

‘Ward beds and nurses are going to be the restrictions, I think, rather than the doctors.’

The waiting times for referrals for emergency, urgent, cancer and routine patients were achieved for 71% of outpatients and 67% of inpatients overall. The KPI target was 95%.

Target waiting times are eight weeks for routine referrals, two weeks for cancer patients, seven days for urgent referrals and 24 hours for emergencies.

‘Almost all patients (94%) were seen within six months of referral,’ said the report.

The longer delays were almost all due to ‘patient factors’, said Dr Yarwood, such as the patient being a student at university, or having another medical condition that meant their appointment has been set back.

There were many positive indicators in the report, he said, and this was despite another difficult year for patients.

‘The “clinical outcome measures”, which are the ones that matter most to patients, are excellent – low return to theatre rate, low hospital acquired infection rate, low day patient admission rate and low readmission rate.

‘This reflects excellent healthcare delivery.’

There was also reference to improvements in such areas as the correct use of off-island procedures, complaints being resolved within target times and meeting expected timings for operating theatres, and a good rate of Emergency Department waiting times, which were just short of the target of 95% of patients being either admitted or discharged within four hours or arrival, with a figure of 89% achieved.

In areas where the KPIs were not met, Dr Rabey said there was no financial or other penalty imposed on the MSG.

‘When we have a problem when we have an issue, we work together, because this is a partnership.’

With waiting lists, for instance, he said the two sides looked at how they could bring them down and come up with a remedial action plan.

Were there any issues relating to procedural matters in the contract they might go to mediation or arbitration, but the two parties seek to agree.

‘At the moment, we’re agreeing furiously, we want the waiting lists down,’ he said.

‘We’ve got orthopaedic surgeons who want to do more operating and we’re doing our best to work together to get those times down.’