Royal Surrey in Guildford urges patients to take up hospital appointments
Over 200 are delaying treatment
Patients with elective surgical appointments at the Royal Surrey in Guildford are being urged to take up on them - as it deals with a backlog caused by the coronavirus outbreak.
Over 200 patients on its elective surgical waiting list are delaying treatment.
The hospital says it is partly due to issues over self-isolating - or safety fears around coronavirus.
It says all its theatres are now running at full speed and it is asking patients to help them move forward now that the Covid-19 emergency has eased.
Chief Executive of Royal Surrey NHS Foundation Trust, Louise Stead, said: "We are on a mission to see non-urgent patients as quickly as possible and give people the treatment they need at the earliest opportunity. Please help us by taking up appointments when we offer them.
"We understand that family and work commitments, combined with the complexities of self-isolating, can make it hard to schedule surgery but we need our community to put their health first whenever they can.
"If our patients delay appointments, our staff spend extra hours trying to fill these spaces. We need our theatres and our fantastic team of surgeons to work at full capacity to help all our patients who are waiting for life-changing treatment."
The hospital still has safety measures in place - since the start of the pandemic - such as one-way systems and drive-thru services to aid social distancing and limit footfall.
Staff continue to wear appropriate PPE and are asked to take lateral flow tests for Covid-19 twice a week, while patients are asked to wear face coverings in the hospital.
Sam Huddart, Royal Surrey's Theatre Clinical Risk Group Lead said: "We know that our patients worry about coming in to hospital, but I want to reassure our community that we do everything possible to limit this risk.
"Thanks to our purpose built Covid-19 isolation unit, we are currently able to treat Covid-19 patients away from the main hospital site. Our teams are committed to patient safety and work very hard to provide the best possible experience for everyone in our care."
Anyone with concerns about taking up an appointment should speak to their GP, the booking team who have made contact or the Consultant who is overseeing their care.
Working as part of Surrey Heartlands Health and Care Partnership, the Royal Surrey and other local NHS partners will receive a share of ÂŁ160m in extra funding.
This 'elective accelerator' programme will support the Trust to implement and evaluate innovative ways to increase the number of planned operations.