Bolton: NHS staff help more than 120,000 A&E patients

This comes as Bolton NHS Foundation Trust releases annual findings on the work it carries out at Royal Bolton Hospital and throughout the community.

Despite pressures faced by NHS staff all over the country and the backlog left over from the Covid pandemic, the findings show that thousands of appointments and surgery procedures were carried out over 2022.

Staff have also worked to clear surgery backlogs (Image: Bolton NHS Foundation Trust)

Chief operating officer Rae Wheatcroft said: “It’s incredible to think of the amount of care given to our communities in more than 1.3m appointments throughout this year.

“Our staff work incredibly hard to provide the highest levels of care for our patients and their attitude, compassion and dedication are a testament to the NHS and an immense credit to Bolton.”

NHS staff have been working hard across all areas over the past year (Image: Bolton NHS Foundation Trust)

The trust revealed that a total of 1,324,358 appointments were carried out in hospital and in the community over the course of last year while 122,705 attendances were recorded at A&E and 5,085 babies were born at Royal Bolton Hospital in 2022.

The huge number of A&E attendees came amid a recurring campaign throughout last year to try and encourage people to only go to the accident and emergency department in genuinely urgent cases.

Bolton NHS staff have also carried out thousands of scans (Image: Bolton NHS Foundation Trust)

The department repeatedly found itself facing huge pressure over the course of 2022 with three in five patients having to wait for more than four hours at various points.

These came as patients at NHS trusts all over the country faced record waiting times.

In response, Bolton staff repeatedly urged people to seek help from their GPs, by calling 111 and from other sources to allow the most urgent cases to be treated more quickly.

But health workers were still able to treat 10,000s and over the same period staff also worked to reduce the surgery backlog, with more than 14,000 surgeries carried out.

More than one million appointments have been carried out (Image: Bolton NHS Foundation Trust)

Their managers hope to build on this over the next few years with the construction of new surgery theatres, which they expect to open by next summer.

The new theatres will join other new building and improvement works including the Bolton College of Medical Sciences, a revamped doctor’s mess and faith facilities and a new garden of reflection.

Staff have carried out appointments at Royal Bolton and across the community (Image: Bolton NHS Foundation Trust)

Overall, the two-year waiting list for surgery has been completely cleared, and just 127 people are now waiting 78 weeks for surgery.

The number of people on Bolton’s diagnostics waiting lists has also been reduced by 2,253.

Support staff, working for the trust’s subsidiary iFM have also done an incredible job for patients with more than 1.8m bits of linen washed and more than 80,000 trays of surgical theatre instruments sterilised.

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Every porter at the hospital is estimated to have walked the equivalent of roughly 12 miles a day over the course of the last year.

Ms Wheatcroft said: “I am so proud of how our staff have gone above and beyond yet again for our patients and how they strive to provide the highest levels of patient care.

“We will always do our best to make a positive difference for each and every one of our patients and their loved ones.”