Rise in number of cancelled operations at New Cross Hospital

More than 150 operations were scrapped for 'non-medical reasons' in the first three months of 2018.

New figures showed there had been a dramatic rise in cancelled operations this year.

Health bosses apologised for the number of cancellations but said some were 'unavoidable'.

There were 52 operations cancelled in January, 56 in February and 51 in March - more than double the 24 that were cancelled in October.

Between March and December last year, the number of cancelled operations did not rise above 40.

Gwen Nuttall, chief operating officer at the Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust, which runs New Cross, said the situation had improved in April.

She said: “Cancelling elective surgery is never an easy decision and we recognise ambulance and apologise for the impact cancellations can have on patients and their families.

“We have made a great effort to reduce cancelled operations but sometimes the situation is unavoidable due to patients needing emergency admission or unfortunately due to staff illness.

"We had an incredibly busy start to the year with the pressure of winter and incidence of flu. The number of cancellations in April has reduced significantly.”

Wolverhampton's Conservative leader Councillor Wendy Thompson said cancellations have a huge impact on families.

She said: "It's terrible for families if they have operations cancelled at the last minute and I think it's because they are having staffing difficulties and illness as well.

"It is immensely difficult to accept for any patient or family. I hope and expect the hospital is doing everything it can to try and minimise that.

"If a patient has it happen once every effort should be made to ensure it doesn't happen again."

It comes as the trust continues to suffer fines for the number of ambulance delays outside New Cross.

The trust will be made to pay another £48,200 after 131 patients were left waiting in ambulances for more than half an hour during March. Another 22 waited for more than an hour.

That came after the Wolverhampton trust was hit with a £105,000 fine in February for its poor ambulance handover performance.