‘Don’t overwork staff’, says trust with just one 52-week waiter

Allowing staff enough rest has been ‘the key’ to elective recovery for an acute trust which has the lowest number of 52-week waiters in England, it has said.

Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells (MTW) Trust currently has just one patient who has waited 52 weeks or more on its lists, compared with a high of 976 at one point in April 2021.

MTW is one of a handful of trusts with very few long waiters. All are relatively small trusts – and are not regional centres for specialist/tertiary patients – but their 52-week-waiters also represent less than 1% of their total list.

MTW chief of service for the surgery division Greg Lawton told HSJ its success in tackling long waiters was down to “attention to detail” in tracking each patient, and not expecting staff to run too many extra sessions.

“Any problems patients are having getting through their pathways are identified early and addressed,” he said. "Treatment had been prioritised on the grounds of clinical need, he added, with cancer treatments still going ahead and cancer targets being met."

The trust, in the South East, has put on extra operating sessions to clear some of its backlog of patients but these had been limited in number, Dr Lawton said.

“What we have never done is try to run too many and I think that may be the key. If you try to do too much you will burn staff out,” he said. The trust had “been mindful that staff need a break,” he added. “Morale is very important.”

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Source: HSJ, 16 February 2022