Lack of private sector help putting elective target at risk, says trust

An acute trust and its integrated care system have said they risk missing the imminent waiting list target, after struggling to get as many patients treated in the independent sector as they hoped.

University Hospitals of North Midlands Trust and Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent ICS have found that some patients who had earlier been referred to independent providers, had then, while waiting for IS treatment, got sicker or became high risk to such an extent that they needed to be referred back to UHNM.

Other patients have declined being transferred to the independent sector, board meetings heard. 

Phil Smith, chief delivery officer at Staffordshire and Stoke-On-Trent Integrated Care Board, told its meeting last week he needed to “flag an escalated risk” to meeting the target, after deterioration in activity “linked to industrial action, linked to the willingness of patients to be treated in the independent sector and the independent sector’s ability to treat patients”.

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Source: HSJ, 22 March 2023