Decision details

The Board:

(i)  Noted that the Barking, Havering and Redbridge Clinical Commissioning Groups and Barking, Havering and Redbridge University Hospitals NHS Trust had developed a refreshed Referral to Treatment recovery plan to more effectively tackle the issue of long patient waits that sought to offer necessary assurance to all stakeholders, including patients and the public;

(ii)  Noted the recovery plan was being reviewed by NHS England and NHS Improvement (formerly NTDA) and external consultants had been engaged by BHRUT to independently verify the data accuracy and assist BHRUT in the resolution of the problem;

(iii)   The Board also wished to place on record its serious concern in regard to:

(a)  The decision of BHRUT to ‘not report’ nor advise the Board of the problem over the last 18 months;

(b)  The apparent lack of urgency at BHRUT in regard to resolving the problem at an earlier point in time;

(c)  The significant number of patients who were waiting more than the 18 weeks referral to treatment target, set out in the NHS Constitution, with some patients still waiting for over 52 weeks;

(d)  The potential deterioration in patients’ conditions and the physiological and social harm that may be caused to patients by the delays;

(iv)  Requested that the Board be provided with regular performance updates on this issue, including:

·  Details of the action being taken by BHRUT to reduce patient wait times;

·  The performance achieved in the previous quarter;

·  The projected trajectory rates to achieving the 18 week referral to treatment target across all specialities;

·  The numbers of patients in each specialist area and how many of those patients are Barking and Dagenham residents;

·  Evidence to substantiate the anecdotal claim by BHRUT that patients are prepared to wait longer to be seen within BHRUT rather than being treated by other providers;

(v)  Requested that BHRUT do not use the term ‘waiters’ in their future reports and suggested that ‘patients’ or ‘people’ was more appropriate.

(vi)  Recommended that the LBBD Health and Adult Services Select Committee include the issue of the Referral to Treatment in its Scrutiny Work Programme for further investigation as a matter of priority.