On 26 March, MPs from the Essex region met with the management team from Mid and South Essex NHS Trust to discuss the performance of local hospitals including Basildon, Broomfield and Southend Hospitals. The Health Minister, Andrew Stephenson MP, also attended the meeting.
Overall, the CEO of MSE Hospitals, Matthew Hopkins, and COO, Andrew Pike, detailed how performance is improving and waiting lists are falling. Specifically, time to diagnosis for cancer patients is getting shorter, A&E waiting times are getting shorter, and ambulance performance has improved.
Last year, Basildon, Broomfield and Southend Hospitals treated 4% more patients than in the year prior to the pandemic. In the coming year, from 1 April, they plan to treat 8% more than pre-pandemic.
Waiting Times
• The number of patients not to exceed a wait of 65 weeks for elective treatment is forecast to be 1,300 by the end of March. At peak in April 2023, this was around 90,000 patients.
• Due to industrial action, the number of outpatients reduced by 10,000 and the number of inpatients by 4,700.
• However, MSE Hospitals expect to have no patients waiting 65 weeks or more by the end of June.
Cancer Performance
• The Trust must achieve the national target that 75% of people are given a cancer diagnosis within 28 days. In January, performance was lagging at 57.9% which is well below the national average. However, in March, performance is expected to be around 71% which is likely to be ahead of the national average.
Ambulance Handovers
• In February, 83.2% of patients arriving at A&E by ambulances were handed over within 30 minutes, and 41.9% within 15 minutes. In February, the average handover time was 24 minutes, well ahead of regional average. This is a very significant improvement on last year and has been achieved despite an increase in ambulance demand of 18%.
A&E Waiting Times
• The Trust would like to achieve 77% of patients waiting less than 4 hours at A&E. They are currently at 71% and anticipate being at 76% by June. This is a very significant improvement on last year.
These improvements have been made possible through targetted initiatives. These include more efficient triaging systems, standardised rapid assessments for ambulance handovers, and new diagnostic hubs like Orsett Hospital’s Ophthalmology Diagnostic Hub which will see an additional 20,000 outpatients per year.
Thanks to direct Government funding injections, Community Diagnostic Centres (CDCs) will also soon be established in Pitsea and Thurrock. Pitsea CDC will offer endoscopy, CT, MRI, ultrasound, echocardiography, blood tests, lung tests, and dermascopy. Thurrock CDC will open in early 2025 and offer 50,000 checks per year, 7 days a week, including X-Ray, CT, MRI, ultrasound, blood tests, echocardiography, and lung tests. Each CDC will work to reduce waiting lists and speed up diagnosis.
MSE Hospitals, in the meantime, are working to be the first NHS Hospital Trust in the country to roll out Electronic Patient Records that combine Hospital Trust, Community Providers and Mental Health Trust services.
There is still more to do to ensure that the 1.2 million people served by MSE Hospitals receive a high level of service. A big thank you goes out to all our local NHS hospital staff for working so hard to deliver improvements to services.
