University Hospitals Dorset reduces treatment waiting list

University Hospitals Dorset (UHD), which manages the two sites, is now in a position of having no patients waiting more than two years for treatment.

Attention has now turned to getting below the 78-week threshold, which could be achieved in the next couple of months.

Nationally, there is a target to have no patients waiting more than 65 weeks by March next year.

Mark Mould, UHD’s chief operating officer, said tackling the waiting list required a focus on the best use of all available resources.

This included working with Dorset County Hospital and using spare capacity at private healthcare operators Nuffield and BMI for treatment of NHS patients.

Mr Mould said no one took pride in the current total of 72,000 people waiting for treatment from UHD but every effort was being made to reduce wait times.

Mark Mould (Image: Newsquest)

“It is really important every single bit of capacity we have available is used really well because that does have an impact on how long people wait and the number of people waiting,” Mr Mould said.

Dr Judith May, UHD’s director of operational performance and oversight, said a fundamental part of what the trust had done was recognising the importance of reducing the waiting list for patients.

“There is a fundamental thing around the trust recognising that a long wait for a patient isn’t good,” she said.

“It is not good for them and it is not good for their families and so the real recognition by the trust that this was something that is importance to us – to try to reduce waits.

“We have done a number of things. One of the things we have done is we have reached out to patients and we have asked them about their position on the waiting list in terms of do they still need to be seen.”

This validation process saw staff take patients who no longer needed to be seen, for example because their issue had resolved or they had been seen elsewhere, off the waiting list.

Collaboration is also taking place with colleagues at Dorset County Hospital, meaning some patients in the east of the county could travel to the Dorchester site for their treatment.Dorset County Hospital in Dorchester

Mr Mould added: “For some patients, we work with the Nuffield, the BMI. Where they have got spare capacity, let’s use that spare capacity for our NHS patients to ensure they are seen sooner. We are trying to utilise every bit of capacity.”

He said better understanding of when patients no longer needed treatment reduced the level of non-attended appointments.

“By asking the question ‘do you still need to receive your treatment’ and that is clinically validated by consultants, we can use the capacity better and people who don’t attend without us knowing starts to come down,” Mr Mould said.

“Sometimes people say we are validating the waiting list to take people off the waiting list “No, we are not validating the waiting list to take people off or a reason of numbers.

“We are validating people in terms of asking the question, so we use the capacity we have got really well for the people who still believe they need to be seen by us.

“We are not into bean counting, we are into making sure the right people at the right time are accessing our capacity.”

Mr Mould said during the nursing and junior doctor strikes the focus had to be on safe urgent emergency care meaning some elective work had to be cancelled. This was not something that was done lightly, he said.

Discussing how patients can play their part, Mr Mould said: “When we are sending a letter out to people, there is still a high proportion of people who do not respond to the letter and there may be many reasons for that. They may think it is some sort of scam, however, about 60 per cent of people are responding.

“Please respond when we are asking you about if you still require your treatment because it will be clinically checked but it helps to use the capacity we have for Dorset people even better.”

Dr May said getting down to the 65-week wait target was “significant” for the trust and workforce recruitment and retention were key to this.

Dr Judith May (Image: University Hospitals Dorset)

She added: “It is a much bigger number at that level than two-year and one-and-a-half-year waits. It is just the volume of patients we need to get through the organisation and making sure we have the capacity to do that.”