THE amount of patients in Worcestershire waiting longer than 18 weeks for a non-urgent operation increased slightly in July.

A report presented at a meeting of Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust on Wednesday, September 3 showed a backlog of 1,677 patients waiting longer than the NHS-mandated period of time for an elective operation in July, up from 1,612 the previous month.

Although this is a decrease of almost 300 since May the figure has been above 1,000 for more than a year.

Board members at the trust – which runs Worcestershire Royal Hospital, Kidderminster Hospital and Redditch’s Alexandra Hospital – had pledged to clear the backlog by this month in an effort to clear capacity for the usual seasonal increase in patients over the winter but this was later pushed back to November.

Although if current trend continue it looks unlikely the trust would meet this target the organisation’s chief operating officer Stewart Messer said he was “reasonably confident” this would be achieved.

“Patients are increasing to come to Worcestershire Royal Hospital and the Alex to have operations,” he said.

“We have made a commitment to NHS England that we will maximise our elective capacity.”

Although part of the trust’s plan to deal with the backlog was to refer operations to the private sector, Mr Messer said the amount of patients who had agreed to be referred had been low. He added the trust was only able to refer non-complex cases to the private sector, meaning the amount overall had been low.

He added the trust had carried out about 900 elective operations in June and July but early figures for August – which are not yet available and will be presented at a meeting of the trust board on Wednesday, September 24 – suggested this had fallen last month.

Board member Andrew Sleigh said it was important the issue was dealt with as soon as possible.

“We should be doing whatever we can to treat whatever elective backlog there is,” he said.

The trust’s director of workforce Bev Edgar said a national shortage of nursing staff was impacting on the organisation’s ability to carry out operations and clear the backlog.

“Every nurse that comes out of the University of Worcester we are recruiting if we can,” she said. “But there is a shortage of about 1,200 nurses across the West Midlands.”

Other measures being put in place include introducing more surgical beds at the Royal and the Alex where possible, increasing recruitment of nurses and surgeons and ensuring data was being recorded correctly and efficiently.