Barts and the London NHS Trust has apologised to 442
patients who were not seen within maximum government waiting limits
because ofinadequate management systems.
The patients waited an average of six weeks longer than the
13-week waiting time national standard for an outpatient
appointment.
The trust said the delays were caused by inadequate management
systems within the Outpatient Appointment Office.
The trust has launched a "serious untoward incident"
investigation to identify the root cause of the issue and why
management systems did not alert the organisation to delays
sooner.
In a statement the trust said that no patient had come to
"direct" clinical harm as a result of the delays.
Last April Barts and The London NHS Trust installed the Cerner
Millennium Care Records Service as part of the
NHS's £12.7bn National Programme for IT. After the go-live last
year it had difficulty gaining an overview of which patients had
been treated for what.
Some patients with suspected cancer had their appointments
delayed.
Of the latest incident to come to light of delays in the
appointments for 442 patients, the trust said matters appear to
have been "compounded by the inflexibility of the Care Record
Service computer system".
This inflexibility was "combined with the complexity of the
trust's clinic structure, which meant that some appointments could
not be made during the initial phone call, even though slots were
available in specialist clinics".
The trust added, "The issue was also exacerbated by increased
pressure on appointment slots arising from the reduction in the
maximum waiting time for outpatient appointments."
The trust tackled the delays by increasing capacity in its
clinics and by senior clinical staff contacting patients by
telephone. Staff also wrote to patients to apologise and to arrange
a suitable time and date for their outpatient appointment.
"Specialties likely to have patients with the most urgent
clinical need were dealt with first and patients booked in to see a
consultant as a matter of urgency. Investigations to date by
clinical staff have confirmed that no patient has come to direct
clinical harm as a result of this issue."
Julian Nettel, chief executive of Barts and The London NHS
Trust, said, "We apologised directly to the patients concerned. We
acted as soon as this came to light, but it is clear that we have
an underlying issue with our management systems that we are
addressing as a matter of urgency to ensure we have the right
controls in place."
The total number of GP-referred first outpatient attendances
between April and October 2008 was 34,202, and of these 95% were
seen within 13 weeks. These patients waited an average of seven
weeks from referral to outpatient appointment.
Meanwhile, E-Health Insider has reported that
Worthing Hospital may ditch the Cerner Millennium system it
bought under the NPfIT.
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