A Huddersfield patient has been waiting for more than a year for brain surgery, health chiefs have admitted.
The shocking delay in treatment has been revealed in a report on waiting times for patients in south Kirklees.
The report for officials at Greater Huddersfield Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) says they are investigating why one patient has been left waiting in excess of 52 weeks for surgery at Leeds General Infirmary.
The patient has not been identified.
The Examiner has learned the lengthy delay has occurred due to staffing problems at the neurosurgery ward in Leeds.
A spokesman for Leeds Teaching Hospitals said: “We identified there were issues with recruitment and leadership on one of the neurosurgical wards at Leeds General Infirmary in late 2012.
“In order to protect the safety and experience of our patients we made a decision to close some of the beds and reconfigure, temporarily, both our neurosurgical and spinal wards until we had better specialist staffing levels.
“We also made some change to ward leadership in this area.
“This decision was accompanied by a clear improvement action plan for the speciality that is being actively managed by a clinician, matron and manager.
“Our priority has been, as the tertiary provider for neurosurgery across the region, to prioritise capacity for the most urgent acute cases, although some elective capacity is still being undertaken.
“Some of our consultants have more ‘urgent’ patients than others, which we review to ensure there is no clinical risk or that this can be mitigated against.
“We appreciate this has led to delays for patients who need planned surgery but not ‘emergency’ surgery and apologise to them for the delay.”
The spokesman said the most urgent patients had been treated at other Yorkshire hospitals.
He continued: “Since April we have managed to secure additional independent sector capacity to treat patients within the NHS at the Nuffield Hospital, Leeds, Claremont Hospital in Sheffield and the Duchy Hospital in Harrogate.
“As a result the waiting times for neurosurgery and spinal surgery have begun to improve and with this additional capacity secured until the end of the year we expect this situation to continue to improve.
“We have held an open day for recruitment to the unit, are looking at different ways of working for these services and undertaking very regular independent assurance visits.
“During the course of the next few months we expect the closed capacity at the LGI to re-open which will allow more patients to be treated here and continue to improve the waiting times for patients.”
A spokesman for NHS England added: “We are working very closely with the Leeds Trust to achieve reduced waiting times for all patients who require a neurosurgical procedure.
“All cases are reviewed to ensure that the most clinically urgent cases are treated as a priority.
“We apologise that some patients will have experienced delays in receiving their care.
“This position will improve as the year progresses and the actions being taken by the Trust take effect.”
