'We have let you down': Hospital trust apologises for waiting times

The trust that provides NHS hospital services at Wexham Park and Heatherwood hospitals has given its ‘sincere apologies’ to patients facing long waiting times.

At the Frimley Health Annual Members Meeting, Frimley Health Trust came under fire from patients deeply frustrated with delays to their healthcare.

One patient said she was ‘at breaking point’ and had been through ’12-and-a-half weeks of hell’ trying to get treatment.

She said she had made 45 calls to as many departments and was approaching staff at the public meeting as a ‘last measure.’

Members of the board acknowledged that the trust’s hospitals do have long waiting times and have not always provided the care patients expect and deserve.

The trust is facing a number of struggles. The waiting list for care at Frimley hospitals has grown to more than 56,000 people, they said.

This summer, the A&E departments were the ‘busiest on record’.

“The NHS has had a rough year,” said Pradip Patel, chairman of the board of directors.

“As hard as we’re working, we have let patients down. When people are waiting longer than they need to be, it hurts us as well. This is an absolute priority for us,” he said.

“I want to offer a sincere and huge apology to anyone we have let down,” added Neil Dardis, chief executive.

To tackle the issue, the trust says it has recruited more than 3,000 new staff and is benefiting from new technology, new units and new teams at the recently completed Heatherwood.

It is working on more same-day emergency care services, increasing bed capacity over the winter months and improving efficiency to make a treatment and discharge process that is as fast as possible.

“It will take some time to get back to where we were pre-COVID,” Mr Dardis said. “We’re expecting it to be a challenging winter.”

The trust is also doubling the number of staff at its call centres which should have a ‘significant impact’ on waiting times.

In particular, the trust is working on making sure calls are directed to the correct department in the first instance.

“Our communication really must be better,” said Mr Dardis.

One large change that the trust’s hospitals are grappling with is a streamlining of its systems. It has set up a single electronic system, launched in June of this year, replacing 200 paper systems.

“A change of this scale takes time to get used to. We’re in an early stage,” said Caroline Hutton, director of transformation, innovation and digital.

In terms of finance, external auditor’s evaluations have been ‘about as good as it’s possible to get’ and Frimley is ‘in a better place than many other trusts,’ said Nigel Foster, director of finance.

He went on to highlight the ‘dark clouds’ the NHS is having to address – emergency pressures, energy inflation and global recession – as well as food and steel prices reaching ‘double digit inflation’.