Oswestry Orthopaedic Hospital cutting down waiting time for treatment

And all three will have begun their treatment by the end of September at Oswestry Orthopaedic Hospital as staff work to reduce waiting times.

Members of the hospital's trust board welcomed the improvements at their meeting yesterday.

Trust board chief executive Wendy Farrington Chadd said: "We continue to make good progress with the longer waiters.

"We need to state some very complex patients who have been waiting a long time has put pressure on resources. I think that's something we did expect to happen and we recognise that as a one-off feature of trying to get us back on track."

At the start of July an investigation was launched by NHS regulator Monitor into missed waiting time targets over concerns some patients were not getting surgery within the 18-week target.

The longest-waiting patients had been on waiting lists for more than a year as they needed complex spinal surgery which they wanted to undergo at the specialist hospital in Gobowen.

Val Doyle, director of operations, said the final three of these patients would be now undergoing their treatment within the next week. "We are on track to eliminate the 52-week wait patients by the end of September," she said.

"That's quite a good drop in waiting times.

"Overall, 98.08 per cent of patients wait less than 18 weeks to start their treatment."

In the year from March 2012 to March 2013, the hospital trust treated 15,478 in patients and day cases, and saw 128,193 out patients.

Board member Richard Clarke said: "This is an excellent achievement. It's been a difficult road and I am sure there's been a lot of pressure and hard work going into this achievement."