Shropshire Star

Oswestry's Orthopaedic Hospital set to meet target for patients' waiting times

Shropshire's specialist orthopaedic hospital is looking set to meet waiting time targets by the end of October.

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The Robert Jones and Agnes Hunt Orthopaedic Hospital at Gobowen, near Oswestry, is currently being investigated by hospital trust watchdog Monitor for missing waiting times.

The hospital saw three English patients wait longer than 52 weeks for treatment during August.

It also had one patient referred from a Wales hospital for treatment who had been waiting for spinal surgery beyond a year.

But Jayne Downey, director of nursing at the hospital trust, said things are now improving. She said the hospital has also managed to meet its target of 92 per cent of patients waiting 18 weeks or less to start their treatment.

"We will possibly still have one English patient and one Welsh patient who has waited longer than 52 weeks in September, but spinal disorders are a challenge nationally," she said.

"We're also helping the Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board in North Wales with some of their long waiters, but these patients are not counted in our targets. It's the patient at the end of the day that's having to wait, and that needs to be put at the forefront of our minds."

John Grinnell, the hospital's director of finance, said the trust is being charged £5,000 per patient who has had wait beyond a year by Monitor.

But he said the hospital is on course to meet its recovery plans targets, drawn up with Monitor.

He said: "The plan now is that in October we won't have any English long waiters.

"It is likely we will have Welsh patients waiting, but we do get referrals from some Welsh patients quite late after they have already been waiting some time.

"It is a massive national problem where spinal providers are not meeting targets. We need to find a sustainable solution."

In June, Monitor announced that it was investigating why too many patients were waiting longer than the 18-week national target for day-case or inpatient procedures at the trust.

A report by the international company, Deloitte, called in by the trust before it was announced that Monitor was getting involved, said that the trust had automatically excluded some patients from the referral to treatment figures.

But many of these were not valid exclusions.

The investigation is currently still ongoing.

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