Patient numbers increase in St Helens
Hospital bosses confirm rise in referrals
The number of new patients being referred to Whiston and St Helens hospitals has soared – but headway is being made on the backlog facing the sites.
Hospital bosses have confirmed referrals have risen by almost 17 per cent compared to pre-Covid levels.
This is approximately 500 more patients than would normally be referred in the first three months of the financial year.
Throughout the pandemic, St Helens and Knowsley Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust has ensured that all urgent care and cancer treatment continued, however, the events of the past 18 months have inevitably led to unavoidable delays for non-urgent care and this backlog combined with the increase in new referrals has resulted in longer waits for some patients.
In trauma, orthopaedics and gastroenterology, referrals have more than doubled compared to pre-pandemic levels.
But despite this surge, the trust is making ‘significant headway’ in reducing waiting times.
Diagnostic services are running seven days a week at both Whiston and St Helens hospitals and, as a result, the trust is ahead of plan with elective recovery and the number of patients with longer waits reducing.
Rob Cooper, director of operations and performance, said: “We are working hard to accelerate the restoration of services, prioritising clinically urgent cases and longer waits, and thanks to the dedication of our staff we have already recovered a significant amount of our backlog, and are ahead of our own recovery plans.
“We appreciate these are challenging times for all our patients whose health, wellbeing and care remains our top priority and we’re confident the steps we’re taking, will continue to reduce waiting times and ensure those waiting for treatment receive it as soon as possible.”
As one of the highest performing trusts in the country prior to the pandemic, the trust was achieving all diagnostic and referral targets.
Figures have shown the scale of the pressure facing the trust between March 2020 and May 2021.
During this period, it has treated 3,084 Covid-19 patients, carried out 46,157 elective procedures and held 501,707 outpatient appointments.