Investigation launched into long waits at Shropshire orthopaedic hospital
Monitor is investigating the Robert Jones and Agnes Hunt Orthopaedic Hospital NHS Foundation Trust because some patients are waiting too long for routine operations.
The health regulator is concerned that too many patients have waited longer than the 18-week national target for day-case or inpatient procedures at the trust. Monitor is worried that this poor performance against a key national healthcare standard may indicate that there are wider issues with how the trust is run.
Monitor also has concerns about how accurately the trust is reporting its performance data for routine operations, after potential problems were identified by a third party.
The investigation will examine the extent of the problems, why they have occurred and what can be done to fix them.
Katherine Cawley, Regional Director at Monitor, said:
Some patients aren’t being treated within a reasonable amount of time at Robert Jones and Agnes Hunt. We need to find out what the problem is and how we can best support the trust in improving this and how it is run.
We are investigating the trust to find out why it isn’t meeting these targets, and if we need to take further action to make sure local patients aren’t waiting too long.
Monitor will announce the outcome of the investigation, in due course.