THE chief executive of Gobowen’s Robert Jones and Agnes Hunt Orthopaedic Hospital says the facility is drastically reducing its waiting times for operations after facing potential fines of more than £500,000.


Wendy Farrington Chadd told the Advertizer that none of the NHS Foundation Trust hospital’s patients will have to wait longer than 12 months for their operation following a Government initiative to reduce excessive waiting lists being rolled out by the Department of Health.
 

Under the new terms hospitals will be fined £5,000 each month for every patient that has waited over one year with the Department of Health describing such eventualities as unacceptable.
 

“To cope with demand, for both the short and the longer term, we have appointed four extra consultants in the last five months, in order to provide additional capacity,” Ms Farrington-Chadd said.
“We do not anticipate having any patients waiting over 12 months by the end of March,” she added.


Figures recently quoted in the national press revealed the Gobowen hospital had 101 people on its list that had waited more than one year for an operation.
The high figure has however been coupled with the hospital’s success regarding the quality of its clinical care where it regularly tops league tables in an effort that has increased its popularity.
 

Ms Farrington-Chadd continued: “The figures quoted this week in The Independent newspaper were from November 2012.
“Since then we have made good progress in reducing the number of patients waiting for more than 12 months for treatment.
“The hospital does not envisage incurring any fines from April under the new system,” she added.
 

The fines, for patients from England waiting over 12 months, are being brought in by the Department of Health from April this year.
 

Despite finding itself at the foot of the table for the length of its waiting list, patients have voted it the best for care quality, hygiene, ward cleanliness and food.
 

Ms Farrington-Chadd added that patients were treated in terms of their clinical priority and in line with waiting times set by commissioners.
“Patients with the longest waiting times are usually those with complex treatment plans due to other existing medical conditions,” she said.