NHS hospitals had to cancel an estimated 30 000 operations in 2021-22 because there were not enough staff to deliver them, a Labour Party report has said.
Responses to the party’s freedom of information request from 50 acute care trusts (of 122 (39%)) showed that more than 60 000 operations were cancelled during that period, including 11 309 (a fifth) because of staffing problems. Other reasons for cancelling included operating theatre capacity, lack of beds, and administration errors.
Extrapolated the findings to the whole population, the party estimated that NHS trusts cancelled 158 000 operations for non-clinical reasons in 2021-22, of which 30 000 were cancelled because of staffing issues. This was double the number of operations cancelled in 2018-19 (79 000).
Labour’s shadow health secretary, Wes Streeting said, “Patients are forced to wait longer for vital operations because the Conservatives have failed to train enough staff over the past 12 years. Having operations cancelled causes huge disruption to patients and prevents them from being able to get on with their lives.
“Labour will tackle this problem …