26.07.13
Surgery delays cause ‘significant risk’ – RCS
Delays at Cardiff’s University Hospital of Wales are leading to a “dangerous” quality of care, the Royal College of Surgeons have found.
An action plan has been agreed with the health board, which will be reviewed by the RCS in the autumn. The report follows a review by the Public Affairs Board for Wales, which warned of poor care in April.
The RCS highlighted delays leading to complications, making subsequent treatment more difficult and inability to admit patients for elective surgery. It is also leading to a “gridlocked” A&E department.
Colin Ferguson, director of Public Affairs for the RCS in Wales, said: “I think our colleagues were telling us that they believed there was significant risk as a consequence of their inability to get patients in to have their operations in a timely way.
“The reasons for that are obviously complex and relate to the whole system of care within the hospital. They relate to emergency medicine, they relate to the admissions coming through the A&E department.
“They were very frustrated. As a group they were expressing to us very clearly that they thought the current situation was unsustainable, and something had to be done about it.”
The chief executive of the health board, Adam Cairns, told BBC Wales: “I'm on record already having apologised to our patients. It is not a position that we can take any pride in – we need to do better. It is fair to say that this organisation was struggling, like many others, to cope with the pressures.
“The circumstances that we found ourselves in, I think, are unacceptable, and we've got to make sure that in the future that we have a much better response. Some of the things that we are already doing are showing some improvements. The bottom line here is we can, and we will, do better.”
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