Staff have been called into Oswestry’s Orthopaedic Hospital over the Easter holidays to open up the operating theatres in an attempt to meet new waiting list targets.
Bosses at the Robert Jones and Agnes Hunt Hospital fear the hospital will not meet the March deadline for treating English patients within 18 weeks.
The state-of-the-art theatres will also be pressed into action on Saturdays to clear the backlog.
Yesterday hospital board members praised staff for the hard work they have already put in to meet an increased demand for treatment at the specialist hospital.
The government has decreed that all patients in England should be treated within 18 weeks and has set an interim date of the end of March. A target of carrying out 790 operations a month had been set to try to ensure the 18-week figure was met.
But deputy chief executive, David James, told the NHS Trust Board that in February the actual number of operations was 680.
He said since then special procedures had been put in place to prevent last-minute cancellations and wasted theatre time.
“There will be extra working days in March, including Saturdays and Good Friday,” he said.
He said some patients had been offered the chance of surgery in other hospitals so they could meet their deadline.
Chief executive, Wendy Farrington-Chadd said staff had been working extremely hard.
Finance director, David Gilburt, said the lower number of operations than predicted meant the predicted surplus of the end of the year may be £50,000 lower than hoped.
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