THE trust which runs Colchester Hospital is failing to hit crucial targets when it comes to its emergency department and cancer treatment waiting times.
Almost 21 per cent of patients at Colchester Hospital have to wait more than four hours before being seen at its accident and emergency ward.
Targets for the East Suffolk and North Essex NHS Foundation Trust, which also runs hospitals in Clacton, Harwich and Ipswich, are for only five per cent of patients to have to wait more than four hours.
Under Government guidelines, patients should also have a maximum 62 day wait for first treatment for cancer.
However, figures from January show 27 per cent of patients have to wait longer than two months following an urgent referral from their GP for suspected cancer - above the 15 per cent target.
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For a cancer screening referral, the trust aims to have 90 per cent of patients screened within 62 days, but only 69.2 per cent actually do.
It represents a concerning decline in the service - in November, 73.8 per cent of patients were screened within the target time frame.
Speaking at the trust’s board meeting yesterday, Neill Moloney, who was the trust’s acting chief executive during the latter part of the Covid-19 pandemic, said he is concerned by the figures.
He said: “The level of performance we can see in the report is a real concern for all of us. From referral to treatment is where we see the longest waits.
“Work to fix this is ongoing. Admittedly, we do have some longer waits than we would like in our emergency departments.
“We have seen a mismatch between demand and capacity which has impacted waiting times. There are particular areas where this has caused real issues.
“We’ve seen some tremendous progress from all of our divisions, not only in the challenges we face but in recognising we are part of the system seeing some of the longest waits across our patch.
“The response from our staff during the pandemic has been tremendous and we have seen really good plans moving forward in response to these challenges.”
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