Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (OUH) is on track to miss NHS waiting list targets set to be achieved next year, recent numbers reveal.
The latest figures from the NHS show that for 3,911 out of 87,600 outstanding treatments, patients had had to wait a year or more for their procedure at OUH – this is around 4.5%. Last year, this figure stood at 2,925.
This suggests that OUH will fail to meet the NHS ambition that aims to see that “the waits of longer than a year for elective care are eliminated by March 2025.” These targets were laid out as part of the NHS’ plan for dealing with the COVID-19 backlog of elective care (non-urgent and planned medical procedures) released in February 2022.
At OUH, approximately 55.9% of patients were waiting 18 weeks or less to start treatment. This is better than the average for other hospital trusts, which is 58.3%.The NHS operational standard is 92%.
The trauma and orthopaedic services had the highest number of treatments waiting a year or more, almost 1000. The urology service had the next-highest, with just over 500 treatments.
The Care Quality Commission, the independent regulator of health and social care in England, determined that OUH “required improvement” overall in a report published in June 2019, based upon an inspection the prior year.
Hospital trusts are run by NHS staff but work closely with universities. The OUH consists of the John Radcliffe Hospital, the Churchill Hospital, the Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre, and the Horton General Hospital. In collaboration with the University of Oxford, it is one of the largest teaching trusts in the UK.
