Colchester Hospital's waiting list is up to TWO years long

Nick Hulme, the chief executive of East Suffolk and North Essex Foundation Trust (ESFEFT) which runs Colchester Hospital, told governors the importance of reducing waiting times which have increased by 175 per cent since the first Covid-19 lockdown.

During today's meeting Mr Hulme informed the trust’s governors less than 20 patients were waiting 52 weeks for treatment 18 months ago - but there are now more than 3,500 patients on the waiting list.

He said: “Our waiting lists are longer than I have ever seen them in my career, and that’s been a really long time as I am going back to what we saw in the 1990s.

“There are waiting lists of up to two years, so this is a really significant agenda for the Government and indeed the NHS.”

He said one of the reasons Prime Minister Boris Johnson visited Colchester Hospital last week is because the trust has been given an additional £10 million to drive the recovery of routine NHS services.

As a result of the funding, more patients will get access to faster treatment for elective care procedures from healthcare professionals across the system.

Mr Hulme said: “The funding will benefit local people and we will see a much quicker recovery of our elective waiting times than anywhere else in the country along with the nine other areas that have been chosen for funding.

“We need to reduce the waiting times, particularly at the waiting times of about 52 weeks.

“When the nation went into lockdown 18 months ago, the trust had less than 20 people waiting more than 52 weeks for treatment.

“We now have more than 3,500.

“That gives you some idea of the scale of this challenge we face.”

The trust aims to achieve recovery of capacity its pre-pandemic activity by July and achieve 120 per cent of it by September.

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However, Mr Hulme said: “But if we just spend money without transformation we are just going to grow the waiting lists again.

“Yes, we need more resourcing in terms of staffing and theatres and outpatient space, but most importantly we need transformation.

“So we are using some of this money to transform some of the services.

“We deliver fantastic 21st century healthcare but often use 1960s processes and there has never before been that burning ambition to redesign the way we deliver healthcare.”

He said the outpatients department has been “crying out” for transformation for many years.

The trust will soon be working with doctors and residents about how to modernise and reform services.