Skip to main content

West Hertfordshire Acute Hospital Trust: Waiting Lists

Volume 467: debated on Monday 19 November 2007

To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many operations were cancelled at West Hertfordshire Acute Hospital Trust within (a) seven days and (b) 24 hours of the appointment time in each year since 1997. (164112)

Information is not available in the format requested. However, the following table shows the number of last minute cancelled operations for non clinical reasons at West Hertfordshire Hospitals NHS Trust from 2001-02 to 2006-07 (which are the latest data available).

Number of last minute cancelled operations for non clinical reasons

2001-02

562

2002-03

244

2003-04

815

2004-05

666

2005-06

621

2006-07

929

Notes:

1. Data were collected at health authority level only prior to 2001-02. Trust level data were collected from 2001-02 onwards.

2. A last minute cancellation is one that occurs on the day the patient was due to arrive, after they have arrived in hospital or on the day of their operation.

3. Some common non-clinical reasons for cancellations by the hospital include: ward beds unavailable; surgeon unavailable; emergency case needing theatre; theatre list over-ran; equipment failure; admin error; anaesthetist unavailable; theatre staff unavailable; and critical care bed unavailable.

Source:

Department of Health dataset QMCO