Hospital takes action to fight backlog

10:16am Friday 29th August 2008

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A HOSPITAL will be forced to examine its patients in a car park as it attempts to tackle a backlog of appointments.

The Princess Royal University Hospital in Farnborough has resorted to the measures after struggling to meet demand for diagnostic appointments and scans.

The backlog means hospital bosses have had to contract out diagnostic work to service provider InHealth, which will set up MRI scanning facilities in the hospital's car park.

Bromley Hospitals' NHS Trust, which runs the hospital, launched a project last month to help meet a Government target stating that patients must wait no longer than six weeks for diagnostic care.

At the end of May, the trust had the second highest number of patients waiting over six weeks in England.

Speaking at a board meeting at the hospital on August 28, performance director Ruth Holland said that the slippage in waiting times has forced the trust to outsource work to tackle the backlog.

The trust's acting chief executive, Mike Marchment, added: "There is no doubt that we have a problem here. When we do deal with the backlog we must not work our machinery and staff harder and harder.

"The idea is that we catch up and then sustain the levels of care.

"The problem is getting people through the diagnostic stage and we have needed to go outside to help with this backlog.

"We can't keep squeezing which is why I have used the external capacity."

The hospital was supposed to have met the Government's six-week target in March but the number of patients waiting over six weeks for diagnostic services is increasing with a total of 1040 at the end of July compared to 1009 at the end of June, 806 patients in May and 769 patients in April.

Hospital bosses aim to cut waiting times to four weeks by December.