Hospital has second-longest waiting time for care

A county's hospital has the second highest number of patients waiting at least 18 months for pre-planned treatment in England.

The Norfolk and Norwich University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust was one of nine NHS trusts identified as having the highest numbers in the country.

Wes Streeting, the Health and Social Care Secretary, previously said failing hospitals will be "named and shamed" in league tables and NHS managers sacked if they cannot improve patient care.

Chris Cobb, the chief operating officer at Norfolk and Norwich University Hospitals, said: "We continually review our waiting lists and we are prioritising cancer, the most urgent and longest-waiting patients."

In August the hospital was rated as "requires improvement" by the Care Quality Commission (CQC).

The inspection highlighted the hospital was the worst in the East of England for ambulance handover times, waits between referral and treatment, and cancer treatment wait times.

However, Rob Assall, the CQC director of operations in the East of England, said since the visit there had been improvements.

The figures showed that as of the end of September there were 2,703 patients in England who had been waiting at least 18 months to begin NHS hospital treatment.

Out of this figure, 168 patients were waiting to be treated at the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital, which makes up 6.2% of people waiting at least 18 months for pre-planned treatment.

There were 249,343 patients in England as of the end of September who were waiting at least a year to start treatment.

Mr Cobb said: "It is a priority of ours to accelerate our elective recovery to ensure patients can access care when they need it, which includes a programme of work to increase elective and day case activity and to also increase the number of new outpatient appointments as well as the proportion of patient-initiated follow ups."

He said to reduce wait times additional theatre lists and clinics are held at the weekend and patients are offered treatments at other hospitals.

A spokesperson for the Department of Health and Social Care, said it would tackle waits "head on" by delivering an additional 40,000 appointments per week.

"Patients have been let down for too long while they wait for the care they need.

"September saw the size of the waiting list decrease and boosted by the extra investment secured at the Budget, we will cut waiting lists further, get patients seen faster and build an NHS fit for the future."

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