Tuesday 25 February 2014
Health and Social Services Department response to Guernsey Press enquiry
Guernsey Press Enquiry:
In regards to our conversation can the department please answer the following questions?
- Are tonsil operations being cancelled with less than 24 hours notice?
- If so, why and how many have had their operation cancelled?
- When have they been rescheduled for? What is the average delay?
- Does the hospital have the supplies needed for the operation? If not, why not?
- Are companies which supply the hospital being paid on time? If not, why not? What is delaying payment and which supplies does this affect? Is it an issue with SAP? When did the problems start? When will they be resolved? Does the hospital lack supplies because of it?
- Can the department confirm if other operations are being cancelled? How many and can it give a breakdown of the total number into what types of operations are being cancelled, and detail why these are being cancelled?
- When will the operations backlog be cleared?
- What does the department wish to say to those who are faced with operations being cancelled?
Health & Social Services Department response:
A spokesperson for HSSD said:
"We would like to take this opportunity to apologise to the small number of patients who have recently been affected by postponed procedures.
For the last week, the Princess Elizabeth Hospital has been experiencing a high volume of patients for routine surgery and emergency admissions. The demand on beds is therefore high which is also being compounded by a relatively low number of patients who can be safely discharged from care. Admissions, discharges and demand on beds are being carefully monitored. All emergency surgery and treatment will continue. Inconvenience to patients is being minimised as far as practically possible, however, a small number of non-urgent, non-emergency procedures have been postponed. The Department wishes to apologise to anyone affected. All procedures will be re-booked by telephone as soon as possible.
A total of nine procedures have been postponed since Wednesday 19th February -The nature of operations affected varies. It is normal practice to ensure that every possible opportunity is explored before a patient's procedure is postponed. This therefore may result in relatively short periods of notice before a postponement is confirmed. This is usual practice locally and in the UK.
In addition to the high numbers of patients being referred to hospital for care and treatment, this morning, routine procedures have been put into place in order to minimise the risks of an outbreak of diarrhoea and vomiting that is currently being investigated on Victoria Wing. This has a direct impact on the admission of new patients to the private patient care ward and therefore the overall capacity of the hospital as a whole. In order to ensure that people are not unnecessarily affected, the admissions team will be contacting patients who are due to be admitted in the next two days in order to postpone their admissions.
More information will be provided as soon as the situation changes."
ENDS
