{"id":251700,"date":"2025-07-09T20:48:11","date_gmt":"2025-07-09T20:48:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/251700\/"},"modified":"2025-07-09T20:48:11","modified_gmt":"2025-07-09T20:48:11","slug":"colchester-hospital-waiting-lists-below-national-average","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/251700\/","title":{"rendered":"Colchester Hospital waiting lists below national average"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\n  Prime Minister Keir Starmer has set out his ten-year-plan to reform the NHS in England, which includes a shift from hospitals to neighbourhood health hubs.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  The NHS App will also be expanded, with plans for patients\u2019\u00a0full health records to be available on demand.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  Labour\u2019s other key health manifesto pledge was to meet the 18-week\u00a0waiting time target &#8211; the benchmark measure for the NHS, referring to when patients start their treatment.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  <img   style=\"width: 100%;\"\/>Data &#8211; Colchester Hospital, part of ESNEFT, is below average for waiting lists\u00a0(Image: Newsquest) The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gazette-news.co.uk\/news\/25044411.suffolk-hospital-trusts-workforce-cut-nearly-500\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">East Suffolk and North Essex NHS Foundation Trust (ESNEFT<\/a>) aims\u00a0to have at least 60.1 per cent of patients being referred within 18 weeks by March 2026.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  The latest data for April 2025 shows that just 55.2 per cent of patients were seen within 18 weeks \u2013 up 0.1 per cent since November 2024.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  The national average is higher with 59.7 per cent\u00a0of patients waiting less than 18 weeks.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  This is up 0.6 per cent from November 2024.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  By March 2026, the Government wants to see this rate rise to 65 per cent with the\u00a0national target being 92 per cent by March 2029.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  Here is the full breakdown by department at ESNEFT with the percentage of patients who were seen within 18 weeks in April 2025:\n<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Ear nose and throat service \u2013 48.1 per cent\n  <\/li>\n<li>Ophthalmology service \u2013 73.5 per cent\n  <\/li>\n<li>Plastic surgery service &#8211; 49.9 per cent\n  <\/li>\n<li>Cardiothoracic (only 7 cases)\n  <\/li>\n<li>General internal medicine \u2013 73 per cent\n  <\/li>\n<li>Gastroenterology service \u2013 65.7 per cent\n  <\/li>\n<li>Cardiology service \u2013 74.6 per cent\n  <\/li>\n<li>Dermatology service \u2013 67.6 per cent\n  <\/li>\n<li>Respiratory medicine service \u2013 60.3 per cent\n  <\/li>\n<li>Neurology service \u2013 54.7 per cent\n  <\/li>\n<li>Rheumatology service \u2013 89.1 per cent\n  <\/li>\n<li>Elderly medicine service \u2013 97.7 per cent\n  <\/li>\n<li>Gynaecology service \u2013 48.6 per cent\n  <\/li>\n<li>Other medical services \u2013 73.3 per cent\u00a0\n  <\/li>\n<li>Other paediatric services \u2013 68.2 per cent\u00a0\n  <\/li>\n<li>Other surgical services \u2013 95.2 per cent\u00a0\n  <\/li>\n<li>Other \u2018other\u2019 services \u2013 81.6 per cent\n  <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>\n  <img   alt=\"Statements - Nick Hulme said he did not believe waiting lists would return to the target of 18-weeks in the next five years\" style=\"width: 100%;\"\/>Localised &#8211; ESNEFT chief executive Nick Hulme said Clacton Hospital could help with the waiting lists\u00a0(Image: Warren Page\/Pagepix) <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gazette-news.co.uk\/news\/25284860.colchester-hospital-boss-speaks-princess-wales-visit\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Nick Hulme, chief executive at ESNEFT,<\/a> said: \u201cOur teams are working hard to see and assess everyone waiting\u00a0for treatment in the communities we serve.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  \u201cWe review all the patients on our waiting\u00a0lists regularly and hold extra outpatient clinics and operating\u00a0theatres wherever possible.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  Mr Hulme said the trust has\u00a0plans in place to deliver the national standard for patient waiting times.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  This includes the new Essex and Suffolk Elective Orthopaedic Centre (ESEOC) at Colchester Hospital which opened in November 2024.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  Mr Hulme said the centre was a \u201cfantastic resource to treat patients from the wider area who need orthopaedic procedures\u201d, with an aim of 10,000 operations each year.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  The centre will also create additional capacity which will see a further reduction in waiting times.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  He added: \u201cPatients will also benefit from developments at Clacton Hospital, with the forthcoming opening of a new urgent treatment centre alongside the community diagnostic centre at the site and the new maternity birthing suite that opened in June.\u201d\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  There is also a new urgent treatment centre and accident and emergency department at Ipswich Hospital.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  Speaking about the NHS\u00a010-year-plan, Mr Hulme said: \u201cWe want people to be in the best place for them, to ensure they maintain their independence rather than relying on hospital care, which is the most expensive and often the most inappropriate for patients who don\u2019t need to be there.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  \u201cThe ten-year plan will help bring radical change to healthcare. Thinking about prevention, the digitisation of healthcare and most importantly moving care from hospitals into the community will allow us to run hospitals in a much more appropriate safer way for our patients.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Prime Minister Keir Starmer has set out his ten-year-plan to reform the NHS in England, which includes a&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":251701,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4316],"tags":[105,4348,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-251700","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-healthcare","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-healthcare","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114825245985975696","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251700","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=251700"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251700\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/251701"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=251700"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=251700"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=251700"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}