Barts’ problem waiting times data will take 18 months to fix

The trust stopped reporting its referral to treatment waiting list to NHS England in September after uncovering problems with its patient administration system.

The trust’s June board papers said: “In terms of the patient backlog, it was expected that the steps to reduce this to a peer norm would require a timeframe in the region of 18 months.”

Barts set up a review panel with local commissioners and NHS England 18 months ago to determine whether any patients had suffered harm as a result of waiting too long for treatment.

HSJ asked if the review had identified any patients that had suffered harm but the trust was unable to give a number because the review is ongoing.

There were 75,578 patients on the waiting list for consultant led treatment when the trust last reported its figures back in August last year.

A trust spokesman said the trust had launched a “recovery programme” which has “delivered a number of improvements”.

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He added: “This includes a reduction in the patient backlog, where we have made considerable progress over the past six months through the implementation of our recovery plan, and total waiting list size reduction across all our hospitals. A fundamental part of our strategy has been to prioritise the most urgent cases to minimise the risk of patients coming to any harm.

“There has also been a strong focus on assessing any clinical harm caused to patients who have had to wait longer than expected.  We are currently in the process of developing a more effective and robust way for reporting patient waiting list data across all of our sites.  Once this has been completed, we will be in a position to resume monthly reporting.”

A spokeswoman for Newham, Tower Hamlets and Waltham Forest clinical commissioning groups, said: “We are working with Barts Health to develop and monitor the delivery of the elective backlog recovery plan to ensure that waiting times are reduced and reporting is resumed as soon as possible.”