Revealed: 2,500 operations cancelled at Sandwell and City Hospitals
More than 2,500 operations were cancelled at Sandwell and City Hospitals over the past 12 months, it has been revealed.
Patients were left frustrated as 419 operations were cancelled on the day they were supposed to go ahead while 316 people had the same procedure put off more than once.
Board members at the Sandwell and West Birmingham Hospital Trust, which runs both sites, said the results amounted to 'very poor patient experience'.
A total of 2,538 procedures were cancelled between April 2015 and March 2016.
A series of errors which led to operations being cancelled have also been revealed. A third of operations which were cancelled on the day were said to be avoidable.
The trust was hit particularly hard during December when 41 operations did not go ahead – with reasons including a loss of water supply at the Birmingham Treatment Centre at City Hospital and 'equipment failures'.
Other problems were also flagged up which had led to operations being put off, such as theatre operating lists stating late resulting in surgeons running out of time to fit in all planned patients, medics not having enough notice about the need for specialist equipment and missing patient information. A spokesman for the trust said the doctor's strikes in recent months had a minimal effect on the figures.
Talks are now set to be held to discuss why so many operations have been cancelled and what can be done to bring the numbers down. Some 200 operations are being cancelled every month – around seven a day on average – which the board said was not good enough. During March, a total of 55 patients had their operations cancelled more than once, with six people told on three occasions their procedure would not be going ahead as planned.
A report by director of operations Michelle Harris, published ahead of this month's board meeting, said: "This is not the experience we would wish our patients to have. There has been considerable focus in reducing the number of cancelled operations, in particular those cancelled on the day of surgery and those cancelled on more than one occasion." The report added: "This is a very poor patient experience."
