THE priority for the trust which runs Winchester hospital is to treat and test a backlog of patients who have been waiting since before the Covid-19 pandemic began.

The chief executive of Hampshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (HHFT), Alex Whitfield, said she is “acutely aware” of all those patients whose care isn’t classed as an emergency, who are still waiting to be seen by the hospital.

Speaking at HHFT’s Annual General Meeting (AGM), Alex said: “There are a lot of people who didn’t get treatment over March, April, May and June because we stood down an awful lot of our planned work and our key focus now is trying to get those patients back into care. It is hugely challenging.

“It is challenging because of all the very necessary requirements that restrict the number of patients we can see at any one time.”

The chief executive gave an example of endoscopies, used to look inside the stomach or digestive system.

“We used to be able to see nine patients through that diagnostic test in a morning, or nine in an afternoon,” she explained, adding: “Because we need to be extra specially careful around Covid restrictions as we are instructed to do nationally, we can only now get five patients on a morning list.

“And as we didn’t have empty rooms sat doing nothing or staff sat doing nothing there isn’t a very easy way to increase that five back up to nine again. So not only are we struggling with the fact there are a group of patients who didn’t receive treatment we are also then restricted on how many patients we can treat of the new people who are coming forward.”

She said the trust is now focusing on seeing as many patients as possible for diagnostic tests, treatment and surgery, adding: “I’m acutely aware that there are a lot of people whose care wasn’t emergency – we kept seeing all the emergencies we kept treating the cancers where it was really time critical – but there are an awful lot of patients who are living in pain or reduced functionality or anxiety about what’s wrong with them who it might not be urgent but it’s absolutely important and we need to get these patients treated or tested as soon as possible, that is our key focus right now.”