Patients waiting less time for planned care in Shropshire, Telford and Wrekin
Patients are waiting less time for their planned care thanks to improvements being made to reduce waiting lists by the NHS group, which provides acute and community healthcare in Shropshire, Telford and Wrekin.
Patients are having their tests and scans much quicker and hundreds more outpatient appointments and operations are taking place each month to ensure timely access to planned care and treatment.
The improvements are being made by Shropshire Community Health NHS Trust (ShropCom) and The Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust (SaTH) - which make up Shropshire, Telford and Wrekin Community and Hospitals NHS Group.
The latest Referral to Treatment (RTT) waiting times figures were released on the NHS England RTT dashboard.
There are currently no patients (English) waiting more than 52 weeks for planned care, or for community musculoskeletal and children and young people’s speech and language therapy services. No young patients are waiting longer than 40 weeks for their planned care.
SaTH exceeded local and national targets that 65% of patients should be seen within 18 weeks of referral for elective care by March 2026, achieving 68.9%, and was the most improved acute trust in the country over the last year. ShropCom achieved 81.3% - an improvement of 28.85% over the last year.
Transformation work in three key areas, focused on increasing productivity, has contributed to improvements in reducing waiting times for elective care at SaTH:
- Increased the number of outpatient appointments – an additional 300 each week
- Increased use of available theatres – an additional 300 surgical procedures each month
- Improved access to tests and scans (diagnostics) – more than 86.4% of patients were seen within six weeks of referral
ShropCom delivered their improvements through focused efforts across services such as Musculoskeletal Services Shropshire and Telford (MSST) and Community Hospital Outpatients – improving productivity, digital initiatives and collaborative working with local health system partners.
Ned Hobbs, Group Chief Operating Officer, said: “The cumulative impact of the improvements our fantastic teams have delivered is better access to care and a better experience for our patients, and we would like to them for their incredible hard work.
“Ensuring that no one is waiting more than a year for their planned care and increasing the number of patients being seen within the 18-week timeframe is a major milestone, and we are hugely proud of the progress that our teams are making.
“There is still much more for us to do as we know that some of our patients are waiting longer than we would like. We have plans in place to reduce waits further, so our patients are having the care they need as quickly as possible.”
