‘Phenomenal’ effort to cut hospital waiting lists at Hartlepool's main NHS trust

Julie Gillon said a recovery plan for elective care put in place following the coronavirus outbreak had continued to put the trust among the top ten performing in the country when it came to clearing backlogs.

The organisation described having “robust” arrangements in place to achieve a position whereby no patients will have been waiting for more than a year for treatment by the end of June.

Ms Gillon told a board of directors meeting that only a small number of people remained in this category, with a report stating this was largely down to unavoidable delays.

She said: “It is a phenomenal accolade to our staff who have worked hard to deliver a recovery plan.”

Recent trust figures show that in February there were 54 patients waiting for more than a year having been referred for treatment, down from 65 the previous month.

Earlier this year the Government announced £8bn worth of investment – paid for by a rise in National Insurance contributions – to help continued efforts to tackle a backlog of elective care caused by Covid-19.

NHS England wants to see waits of longer than two years eliminated by July this year and waits of more than a year by March 2025.

The trust had to cancel 322 operations for non-medical reasons in December, including 26 on the day, due to staff shortages with covid being a major factor.

But in recent months operational and workforce pressures are said to have eased somewhat allowing staff to catch up with elective, routine surgery.

Late last year there were a record six million people in England on NHS waiting lists in England for hospital treatment.

This included 54,636 people living across the Tees Valley area.

The Government wants to increase capacity in the NHS primarily through the establishment of a network of 160 community diagnostic centres across the country, along with surgical hubs focused on high-volume routine surgery away from major hospital sites.