Fylde health services hit 12 of 43 targets, report finds

Almost 25,000 patients were on waiting lists at Blackpool Victoria Hospital in March 2022

An area's health services only achieved 12 of its 43 performance targets in the past year, a report has found.

Blackpool Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) found Fylde's services were struggling to cope and about 25,000 people on hospital waiting lists, a rise of 6,000 on the previous year.

The CCG also found cancer patients were waiting longer for treatment.

Its report said "complex factors", including staff sickness and Covid-19, and increased demand were to blame.

The Local Democracy Reporting Service said the report, which is due to be presented to Blackpool Council's adult social care and health scrutiny committee on 23 July and covers the period from March 2021 to March 2022, painted a grim picture of how the NHS was struggling with increased pressures.

'Improve system flow'

It found almost 5,000 patients waited more than 12 hours in A&E before being admitted at Blackpool Victoria Hospital, up from 294 on 2020/21.

It also found the CCG and Blackpool Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (BTH) had failed to meet the target of 93% of cancer patients being given an urgent appointment within two weeks, with the CCG recording 88.19% and BTH 88.54%.

However, it also noted that there had been "a significant increase" of 31% in the number of referrals from across Lancashire and South Cumbria in the past year.

The report also said a "mix of complex factors" had affected waiting times, including "patient choice, isolation following a positive Covid-19 test and staff sickness due to Covid-19".

It added that the CCG and BTH had introduced a number of measures to try and alleviate the issues identified.

Those included increasing capacity by using private health facilities, discharging patients quicker to free up beds and using telephone or video consultations for outpatients.

The report said BTH was also "working closely with system partners to improve system flow, avoid unnecessary admissions and support hospital discharges".

It said the measures had cut the number of patients waiting over a year for treatment from 1,717 to 742 in the past 12 months.

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