Floods Update - Tuesday July 31st 2007

31/07/2007

Outpatient appointments

The message remains the same regarding outpatient appointments and routine surgery and day case operations, that:

From Wednesday 1 August all outpatient appointments will resume as normal at Cheltenham General Hospital, Gloucestershire Royal Hospital, Delancey Hospital and Stroud General Hospital.

Anyone who has an appointment at these hospitals should please keep that appointment as normal.

Anyone who has had an outpatient appointment cancelled during the last few days will either already have a new appointment date, or will be contacted in the near future to arrange a new date.

Routine surgery and day case procedures

From Thursday August 2nd the Trust will also resume most routine inpatient and day case procedures and operations scheduled to take place at Cheltenham General, Gloucestershire Royal Hospital and Stroud General Hospital.

Anyone expecting to come into hospital on Thursday should do so as planned unless they have been contacted by the hospital.

Anyone who has had a routine operation or day case appointment cancelled during the last few days will either already have a new appointment date, or will be contacted in the near future to arrange a new date.

Radiotherapy

The Trust has already been able to provide a substantial number of radiotherapy appointments for the last couple of days and hopes to have all four linear accelerators (the ‘linac’ machines which are used to deliver radiotherapy) up and running very soon. The reason why treatment was cancelled was that the linacs require substantial amounts of water as part of their cooling system.

There will be another update tomorrow.

Our clinicians have closely examined the notes of all patients and those for whom radiotherapy treatment is critical are being contacted directly to arrange an appointment.

However, all radiotherapy patients are being contacted by staff to discuss their ongoing treatment and in some cases, consultants are carrying out consultations over the phone. In order to treat as many patients as possible, a radiotherapy service was also provided over the weekend – something which does not usually take place.

Helpline for Patients

The free helpline number to call for any queries regarding appointments is 0800 0193368. The helpline is open 8am – 5 pm and is being reviewed on a daily basis.

Tewkesbury Hospital

Tewkesbury Hospital is being used as a GP base from Monday 30 July for two weeks and outpatient appointments and surgery have been cancelled until further notice. Alternative arrangements will be made for urgent outpatient appointments at other hospitals.

Breast Screening Service

The Breast Screening Service in Cheltenham will resume service as normal from Monday August 6th. All patients whose appointments were cancelled will receive a new appointment date through the post.

Some service has resumed today (Tuesday 31st July) – patients who are being seen will have been contacted by telephone.

The service from the Stroud and Dursley Mobile Units is still running.
The cancellation was due to the water shortage which means we are unable to process the x-rays. All affected patients will be receiving another appointment once the current situation improves and the service is planning to resume as normal as soon as possible.

Comment:
Steve Peak, Director of Service Delivery at Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust said: “We are delighted to be able to resume almost normal service from Wednesday and Thursday this week. We would like to thank all patients and their families for their understanding during this challenging time, also members of Trust staff who have really pulled together and continued to provide a good service despite the difficulties.

“We understand that patients may have been concerned about the cancellations and apologise for any inconvenience they have caused.

“We would like to reassure members of the public that it was only routine and non-urgent appointments that were cancelled and our clinicians have been studying patient notes to ensure that those who required treatment as a matter of priority continued to be seen.

“Anyone who is uncertain about whether their appointment is going ahead should contact our free helpline.”