Patient waiting times halved at Stafford Hospital
Waiting times for patients referred to Stafford Hospital by their GP have been slashed by half in six months, delighted bosses revealed today.
The average period between referral and treatment has come down from 26 to 13 weeks, according to the latest figures in October.
Chiefs at Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust said today they were on track to bring waiting times for all specialities below 18 weeks by the end of the year. The position is a remarkable turnaround from this time last year. In November 2011, more than 3,000 patients had been waiting more than a year for treatment.
Those delays were mainly to see experts in orthopaedics, gastroenterology and thoracic medicine, areas which were targeted for improvements.
Three consultants were recruited this summer to ease backlogs in orthopaedics and gastroenterology. Chief operating officer Maggie Oldham said today: "At the end of April 2012 the average wait time for patients from being referred by their GP to being treated at Mid Staffs was around 26 weeks and sadly some patients had to wait considerably longer.
"We made a determined effort to tackle the problem so that patients would be treated as quickly as needed for their particular clinical condition.
"The nationally published figures for the end of August showed that we had reduced waiting times to 14.5 weeks for 92 per cent of patients."
