Hospitals suspend surgery due to bed shortage

All routine inpatient surgery at Pinderfields Hospital in Yorkshire is to be suspended from 16 August to help the hospital trust cope with overcrowding in A&E caused by a lack of beds.

The Independent was given a copy of an email sent by bosses at the Mid Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust saying that they had been forced to make the decision because of the lack of beds for waiting patients, which they said had been a “critical issue for too long.”

The Yorkshire trust joins a long list of hospitals across the country that have been forced to cancel planned surgeries in recent weeks because of a summer crisis in patient demand. These include Salford Royal Trust in Manchester, the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham, St Mary’s Hospital in Paddington and Charing Cross Hospital in Hammersmith, and Sheffield Teaching Hospitals Trust.

Full story in The Independent, 14 August 2021