Last month BHRUT updated you on the enormous amount of work taking place at Queen’s and King George Hospitals to see patients who have been waiting too long for their treatment.
The Trust has now revealed in its March Board papers that it has 1,015 patients waiting more than a year on the elective RTT pathway. Clearly this is a major issue for us as commissioners and we have made it very clear to BHRUT that it is unacceptable for patients to wait this long for the treatment that they need.
We are working closely with the Trust and TDA to support their recovery plan and at the same time working with our GP members and community partners across the system so that patients’ needs are addressed as soon as possible and our hospitals can get back to normal running.
The Trust has confirmed to us that the key focus of their work now is to treat those who have been waiting too long as quickly as possible and to provide assurance that they have not come to any harm as a result of that wait.
As a system we are focused on ensuring that not only do patients already identified get the care and treatment they need as soon as possible, but that this does not happen again.
We will continue to work with the Trust and regulators to address this issue, while also holding them to account for their performance, as you would expect. We are also very clear that funding arrangements for additional appointments and operations will not get in the way of the delivery of care for the people that need it.
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