Treatment centre flood leads to operations being cancelled
Hundreds of patients have been affected by a flood at a treatment centre, it has emerged.
Theatres and operating rooms were left unusable after water pipes burst at the Birmingham Treatment Centre, which is part of City Hospital and run by Sandwell's NHS trust, forcing operations to be cancelled.
The rooms have been out of action since the beginning of February, impacting on more than 700 patients who were due to receive treatment. It is likely that figure includes some patients from the Black Country as the centre is close to the border with Birmingham.
Toby Lewis, chief executive of the Sandwell and Birmingham NHS Trust, said around half of the patients were able to receive treatment at alternative theatres but that the rest were still waiting. Patients were treated "in order of clinical priority", the chief executive said.
Mr Lewis said a review had been launched to see if the impact of the flood could have been foreseen or minimised.
Six theatres and three minor operating rooms were forced to close. Repairs have now been made and it is expected they will be ready for use again next week.
Mr Lewis said in a new report to board members: "The contractors assessed the theatre environment along with our theatre teams and control of infection and a detailed repair programme was put in place, which passes all theatres and minor operating rooms back to the trust, ready for use on March 10.
"This impacted over 700 patients who were booked for that time period. Half of these patients have had their care provided through alternative theatres and we continue to work out novel solutions to re-provide the rest in a timely manner.
"Care was re-provided in order of clinical priority, but of course this has occasioned distress for patients and families, and a huge amount of displaced work for colleagues.
"Theatre and domestic staff acted swiftly and tirelessly to ensure they mitigated as much damage to the area as possible. A detailed root cause analysis is awaited from the PFI contractors to see if preventative measures could have reduced the impact and what learning there is for the future, across all our sites."
