Responding to a Weston Mercury story today (26th November), regarding a patient who had a number of 'emergency' operations cancelled, Bee Martin, Medical Director at Weston Area Health NHS Trust said: “We would like to apologise to Mr Cattle for the few days delay to his operation and understand the distress this may cause to both him and his family.
“We do advise all patients scheduled for surgery that emergency cases must take priority. So for example, if an 81 year old grandmother came into the hospital after Mr Cattle had been admitted because she’d fractured her hip following a fall, we would operate on her before him because her clinical and health risks are much higher.
“Unfortunately, we’ve recently had an influx of emergency cases which were deemed clinically urgent and meant that low risk operations had to be rescheduled.
“We have a strong track record on meeting planned or elective operations, especially when compared with other Trusts in the region but occasionally our high standards aren’t met because of emergencies.”