Addenbrooke's theatres closed since 2020 for fire safety work

Three surgery theatres at a major NHS hospital have been closed for nearly two years for fire safety work.

The A Block theatres at Addenbrooke's in Cambridge were closed in August 2020 to replace the roof and improve ventilation after a fire safety audit.

The trust that runs the hospital said the number of planned operations was currently 83% of what it was in 2019-20, partly because of the closures.

A trust spokeswoman said fire safety was a "top priority".

The trust said that other pressures, including the Covid pandemic, had also had an impact on the reduced surgery numbers.

The most recent Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (CUH) board papers stated the theatres were due to remain closed until March 2023.

The papers said: "Due to physical capacity constraints and sub-optimal patient flow, the trust is not able to sustainably restore services to pre-Covid levels and reduce waiting lists, while at the same time managing future Covid surges and providing decant capacity to address fire safety and backlog maintenance, which adversely impacts on patient outcomes and experience."

Darryl Vickers, 48, from Chelmsford, requires a hip replacement after smashing it in a motorbike accident in Colchester in 2004.

He had reconstruction surgery and various pins and plates helped secure his hip, but he was told he would need a replacement eventually.

"I was told to make it last as long as possibly because due, to my age, they wear out quite quickly because I'm quite an active person."

Mr Vickers waited "possibly longer than I should have" until 2019, before deciding to see his GP, as he had got to the stage where he could no longer put weight on his right hip.

"When I went for the X-rays you could see bits of the ball joint had just broken away. Bits of bone where just floating about, grinding as I moved," he said.

In January 2020 he was referred to Addenbrooke's. The hospital tried to operate last year, but Mr Vickers had an infection preventing the hip operation from going ahead.

He said he was on high doses of painkillers.

It has meant he could no longer do activities such as roller skating with his children.

"I can't go to work at the moment as I can't stand all day long. It just gets you down so much, being stuck in these four walls," he said.

"My GP said, you've been referred for an urgent one. That should be relatively quick. But no it wasn't."

Mr Vickers blamed poor management for the theatres still being closed.

"It's all to do with administration," he said, adding the trust should have kept on top of fire safety standards.

"If they were to spend the money on it and keep things up-to-date and in service, things would keep going," he said.

The trust - which has 34 other theatres - had £30m set aside for fire safety works over the next seven years, which will pay for the A Block renovation.

It would also go towards ward refurbishment and the inspection, repair or replacement of more than 4,000 fire doors.

A Block was built almost 60 years ago and the trust said the theatres had been subject to ongoing repairs over many years, with the most recent being in 2015-16.

A CUH spokeswoman said: "Maintaining fire safety across such a large and complex site is a top priority for the trust and involves ongoing inspections, improvements and repairs.

"The refurbishment of the three theatres is part of this process, to ensure excellent standards of safety.

"We would like to apologise to patients who are experiencing long waiting times for planned surgery and understand the uncertainty and pain this may cause.

"We are working extremely hard to carry out as many operations as possible while keeping our patients and staff safe."

Find BBC News: East of England on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. If you have a story suggestion email [email protected]