NHS crisis deepens as cancer surgeries cancelled at Leeds Teaching Hospitals Trust

Cancer patients at Leeds Teaching Hospitals Trust have had their operations cancelled after rising numbers of coronavirus patients, which senior medics said was “affecting all our wards everywhere”.

The trust said it had seen a “marked increase” in Covid admissions and was now having to cancel surgery for urgent patients “who’ve already waited too long”.

In a message to senior doctors earlier this week, the trust’s clinical directors said “Four patients with cancer are about to be cancelled today with very difficult and upsetting conversations. In critical care we’ve had six extra admissions, from four to ten just yesterday.”

The message said two of the hospital’s Covid wards were now full, adding “It’s highly likely that we’ll need to open another Covid ward this week.

“We’ve got too many inpatients to manage this increase within [emergency specialty medicine] and the outlier numbers are very high – it’s affecting all our wards everywhere.”

The message underlines the worry amongst NHS hospitals that increasing infections are still leading to patients needing hospital treatment. While rises are at smaller numbers now than in previous waves of the pandemic, they seem to be sufficient to destabilise certain services.

The trust’s chief medical officer Dr Phil Wood, said “While every patient’s care is important to us, we have had to postpone some planned elective operations to ensure patients who require urgent treatment are prioritised.

“All our cancer patients are given personal treatment plans based on clinical evidence from combined teams of senior clinicians. We are constantly reviewing the situation and we are committed to achieving timely and safe care for all our patients.”

Chadwick Lawrence’s specialist team of clinical negligence lawyers have years of experience in medical negligence claims, providing support and guidance after life-changing events. Not only do we represent clients in Yorkshire, but because of our reputation we also represent clients nationally.

If you believe that you or a relative may have been injured as a result of clinical/medical negligence, please call for free legal advice from our medical negligence solicitors on the freephone number below.

Posted by Karen Motley, Clinical Negligence Department, Chadwick Lawrence LLP (tonymay@chadlaw.co.uk ), medical negligence lawyers and clinical negligence solicitors in Huddersfield, Leeds, Wakefield and Halifax, West Yorkshire.

Freephone : 0800 304 7382