King’s Mill Hospital: all the key numbers for April

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Tens of thousands of patients were waiting for routine treatment at Sherwood Forest Hospitals NHS Trust in April, figures show.

A think tank has warned the Government is “moving in the opposite direction” from its goal of bringing waiting lists down.

NHS England figures show 49,954 patients were waiting for non-urgent elective operations or treatment at SFH sites – the trust runs Mansfield Community, Newark and Sutton’s King’s Mill hospitals – at the end of April, up from 47,727 in March, and 40,995 in April 2022.

Of those, 924, 2 per cent, had been waiting for longer than a year.

Across England, A&E departments received 2.2 million visits last month – up 10 per cent compared with April, and similar to the number of visits seen in May 2022.

The median waiting time from referral at an NHS Trust to treatment at SFH was 12 weeks at the end of April – up from 11 weeks in March.

Charlotte Ainger, SFH associate director of operations – planned care, said: “We know there’s a patient behind each and every one of those statistics and we appreciate the impact waiting for diagnosis and treatment can have on patients and their families. We continue to work hard to ensure patients can access the treatment they need and deserve as quickly as possible and I would like to thank patients for their understanding.”

“In April, 93 per cent of our patients began cancer treatment within 31 days of treatment being decided – and although this is very slightly below the government target it is still a considerable achievement and our highest figure since August 2021.”

“Our hard-working staff continued to prioritise cancer treatments despite managing five days of intense industrial action and the Easter Bank Holiday.”

Nationally, 7.4 million people were waiting to start treatment at the end of April.

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Separate figures show 1.6m patients in England were waiting for a key diagnostic test in April – the same as in March.

At SFH, 10,951 patients were waiting for one of 12 standard tests, such as an MRI scan, non-obstetric ultrasound or gastroscopy at this time.

Of them, 3,737, 34 per cent, had been waiting for at least six weeks.

SFH was granted planning permission earlier this year for a new community diagnostic centre in Mansfield, designed to reduce the time for patients to be referred for vital tests, which will in-turn help patients receive an ‘all clear’ or diagnosis sooner.

Other figures from NHS England show that of 76 patients urgently referred by the NHS who were treated at SFH in April, 58 were receiving cancer treatment within two months of their referral.

A month previously – when 98 patients were referred – 79 were treated within 62 days.

In April 2022, 61 patients were treated within this period, out of 88 referred.

NHS England said staff are continuing to make progress on recovering routine services despite the it facing "the most disruptive industrial action in its history in April", with four days of strikes by junior doctors resulting in more than 195,000 appointments and procedures having to be rescheduled.

Accident and emergency units across the country also experienced the busiest May on record, it said.