George Oswald told the States yesterday that last year 64% of patients attending outpatient appointments were within the contractual waiting time, which is between 24 hours and eight weeks, depending on the severity of the complaint.
Since February this year, average waiting times have been around eight weeks, he said, with the longest waits for specialist nursing services within Health & Social Care services, but with increased demand across all specialties.
‘Efforts continue to stabilize waiting lists and reduce them where possible. However, without additional physical and clinical capacity, it will be challenging to return to the target waiting times that are set within the context,’ he said.
Deputy Oswald told Deputy John Gollop, who raised questions in the States, that waiting lists remained a ‘super priority’ for his committee to address. The issue was under continual review for senior staff and the board was being updated quarterly.
He admitted that greater use of private healthcare and insurance would help with contract waiting times, but said that with local care, there was only a finite number of clinic and theatre spaces to cope with demand.
‘So it would make a difference at one end of the spectrum, but not necessarily at the other,’ he said.
Deputy Oswald said that waiting times varied significantly between specialties, reflecting demand and resource constraints. Often demand volume and complexity were increased even in areas where referral numbers were stable.
‘The main constraints are workforce, and to some extent, space. Some specialties are hard to recruit to, for example, neurology, and historically, gastroenterology. Where capacity or pathways have improved, so has access.
‘There are areas on this island where we may only have one or perhaps two specialists in that particular area, but one has to remember that we are an island of 65,000 people. We cannot provide 24-hour cover, seven days a week, in every speciality.
Deputy Gollop asked if HSC would continue to push for the first phase of the hospital modernisation project, which has been hampered by construction delays, to open next year, and then look to proceed with further plans which have been beset by escalating costs.
‘There is active and a strong workforce working on how we’re going to get around the problems which have faced us,’ said Deputy Oswald.
But he denied that delays in opening a new critical care unit were contributing significantly to delayed appointments and operations.
‘We currently have a perfectly adequate and functioning critical care unit. It doesn’t meet current NHS requirements in terms of space, privacy, and all those circumstances, but it functions in its capability of providing critical care to some of our most challenged patients.’