Monitor launches investigation at West Midlands hospital

The Shropshire-based hospital carries out specialist bone and joint surgery, and is a leading national centre for hip and knee replacements. It has made improvements in the proportion of patients treated within 18 weeks of referral over the last year however it is still missing the target of 93 per cent. Latest figures show that in April this year just 77.3 per cent of patients were treated within that timescale.

Adam Cayley, regional director at Monitor said there was no evidence the trust is provding poor quality care.

He added: “Its small size and the specialist nature of what it does mean that there are a range of issues that might cause it to have difficulty in meeting referral to treatment targets. 

“However it has twice failed to fully implement a recovery plan and, despite some significant progress having been made, it is still failing to meet its target to reduce the number of patients waiting over 18 weeks.”

Trust chief executive Wendy Farrington Chadd said the hospital had seen increased referrals due to the specialist nature of their services and would be making representations to Monitor about the “specific nature of services” provided.

“We are also a high quality centre and patients choose to wait for complex surgery - this is their choice and we wish to respect that choice. Despite these challenges we will be in a position of achieving access times in orthopaedics from July and will be one of few hospitals achieving this in this specialty,” she said.

“Our overriding priority as a board has been to treat patients in accordance with their choice of hospital and Consultant, and the complex nature of some of our operations means it is not always possible to do this within a standard 18 week pathway.”