Over 3,000 waiting over 52 weeks for treatment at North Essex & East Suffolk NHS Trust
The boss says teams are working hard to reduce the list
Before the pandemic 11 patients were waiting over 52 weeks for treatments at hospitals across East Suffolk and North Essex, that figure now sits at 3,500.
During the first surge of Covid-19 hospitals were instructed to stop all elective and outpatient care which created the massive backlog.
Nick Hulme, the Chief Executive of East Suffolk and North Essex Foundation Trust (ESNEFT) told us some organisations across the East of England have patients waiting up to two years.
Although ESNEFT aren't at the figure yet Mr Hulme did say within the organisation they still have more people than they want waiting over 52 weeks:
"Our hope is to achieve the ambition to have nobody waiting 52 weeks by the end of March next year.
"We have been given some additional resource, so we are part of one of 10 pilot sites across the country that have been given £10, 000,000 as a system, that's ourselves, Ipswich and Colchester Hospital and West Suffolk Hospital to really accelerate some of that recovery by bringing in temporary theatres, appointing more staff and working into the evenings and weekends.
"Even with all that additional resource and hard work from all our staff it's unlikely we will achieve that by the end of March and indeed there is still some risk about setting that standard and giving great confidence that we can achieve it by then."
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The £10 million will not only help to drive the recovery of routine NHS services and see patient get access to faster treatment for elective care procedures, but it will also help to transform the way they work.
Mr Hulme added:
"One risk of being given more money is that you recreate the same problems that perhaps already existed within the system"
We've learnt through the pandemic that there are opportunities for virtual working, more people can have their care via email, video link, phone and that's not for everybody, we need to make sure we don't leave anyone behind who for whatever reason doesn't have the resources or skills to receive their care in that way, but that's just some examples of what we will be looking at."
Patients are asked to please bear with the trust as they continue working hard to reduce the waiting times across the area.