Hundreds of people waiting more than 18 months for health appointments in Shropshire
Thousands of people have been waiting for more than a year for community health services in Shropshire, a health trust has heard.
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Some nine people have been waiting for more than two years as some services run by the Shropshire Community Health NHS Trust (ShropCom) are struggling because of various problems.
ShropCom’s board was told on Thursday (February 6) that they are on track with Government-mandated waiting list targets but are seeing a ‘deteriorating’ position in the non-statutory local targets that they set themselves.
Sarah Lloyd, ShropCom's director of finance, digital and estates, said: “We have seen a deterioration in our longer waits. Nine people have been waiting for over 104 weeks.”
She said there was a “challenge” in community urology rehabilitation and in psychology.
“We have got a challenge here and we have work to do. The right actions are happening and we are being ambitious. We are going as fast as we can,” she said.
Andrew Morgan, who chairs both ShropCom and The Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust (SaTH) said: “These are not just numbers, they are someone’s loved one.
“104 weeks is two years. We do not expect to wait for anything that long in our lives, do we?”
Background papers to the meeting at Ludlow’s Mascall Centre reported the total number of people on waiting lists for both nationally and locally set targets.
The information showed 495 people waiting for more than 52 weeks for nationally set targets and 1,494 for local targets.
There were 540 people waiting for more than 65 weeks for local targets, and none for national targets.
And there were 302 people waiting more than 78 weeks, and nine for more than 104 weeks, all for the locally-set targets.
“There has been improvement in total patients waiting more than 52 weeks to start consultant-led treatment (national target) since the last report. However, all local waits are showing either a levelling off or a deterioration in December,” the board agenda papers report.
The board papers also give an indication of what ShropCom is doing to improve the situation.
Additional sessions have been provided in gynaecology, and they are working on providing additional support within ENT and respiratory.
But they say that a problem in transferring orthopaedic services means they cannot set a recovery date.
And in psychology the board has been told that it will “commence recovery by end of January with the commencement of an internal psychologist and psychology assistant".
