Health Boards
SCORES of patients will be forced to travel extra miles from their homes for skin treatment after Staffordshire's main hospital suspended its service.
The dermatology department at the University Hospital of North Staffordshire (UHNS) yesterday started sending people still awaiting appointments back to their GPs to be found another centre.
Alternative venues include Congleton War Memorial and Crewe's Leighton hospitals, and centres at Macclesfield, Buxton and Knutsford.
The closure to non-urgent cases comes after the unit at UNHS's central outpatients department was hit by a doubling in the number of referrals from family doctors of patients with ailments which could be cancer.
And that has left its clinics unable to guarantee people with non life-threatening ailments can be under treatment within the 18-week target laid down by the Government.
Even though only 18 patients are breaching the deadline, it means UHNS can no longer be included on the list of choices placed before patients when telling GPs where they want to be seen.
The restrictions affect people with conditions such as acne, psoriasis, eczema, minor skin infections and benign lumps and bumps.
The trust had offered to bring in an extra locum dermatologist to cut the backlog but the area's primary care trusts which fund North Staffordshire's NHS have capped its contracts with hospitals to levels agreed at the start of the financial year in April.
The suspension of the service which sees scores of patients a month is scheduled to last until January 16 but will be reviewed before then.
The suspension left GP leader Dr Paul Golik baffled as the option of referring patients to UHNS was still showing up on his Norton surgery's systems – with the first available appointment being on March 26.
The secretary of the 270-GP local medical committee said: "Other hospitals have no problem getting enough consultants so one wonders why UHNS struggles."
Hospital operations director Dereth Baker said: "We have not taken this action lightly and urgent referrals will continue to be treated. But we are unable to accept patients with non-urgent conditions.
Source: thisisstaffordshire.co.uk
The dermatology department at the University Hospital of North Staffordshire (UHNS) yesterday started sending people still awaiting appointments back to their GPs to be found another centre.
Alternative venues include Congleton War Memorial and Crewe's Leighton hospitals, and centres at Macclesfield, Buxton and Knutsford.
The closure to non-urgent cases comes after the unit at UNHS's central outpatients department was hit by a doubling in the number of referrals from family doctors of patients with ailments which could be cancer.
And that has left its clinics unable to guarantee people with non life-threatening ailments can be under treatment within the 18-week target laid down by the Government.
Even though only 18 patients are breaching the deadline, it means UHNS can no longer be included on the list of choices placed before patients when telling GPs where they want to be seen.
The restrictions affect people with conditions such as acne, psoriasis, eczema, minor skin infections and benign lumps and bumps.
The trust had offered to bring in an extra locum dermatologist to cut the backlog but the area's primary care trusts which fund North Staffordshire's NHS have capped its contracts with hospitals to levels agreed at the start of the financial year in April.
The suspension of the service which sees scores of patients a month is scheduled to last until January 16 but will be reviewed before then.
The suspension left GP leader Dr Paul Golik baffled as the option of referring patients to UHNS was still showing up on his Norton surgery's systems – with the first available appointment being on March 26.
The secretary of the 270-GP local medical committee said: "Other hospitals have no problem getting enough consultants so one wonders why UHNS struggles."
Hospital operations director Dereth Baker said: "We have not taken this action lightly and urgent referrals will continue to be treated. But we are unable to accept patients with non-urgent conditions.
Source: thisisstaffordshire.co.uk