Significant numbers of Covid-19 patients in Newcastle's hospitals through June and July have seen the NHS Trust miss key targets for boosting elective activity - but it will still receive NHS funding linked to the targets.
At a meeting of the Newcastle Hospitals NHS Trust's board this week execs discussed how continuing pressure - with more than 100 Covid-19 positive patients on the wards and at least 40 of them being treated for the virus itself - had limited how much progress could be made to bring down waiting lists.
According to the Government's coronavirus dashboard, there were 105 Covid-19 patients in hospital at the RVI and the Freeman on July 26. Of those, four are in mechanical ventilation beds. The board meeting heard around 40 of those patients are being treated for Covid.
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Earlier this year, NHS England's elective recovery plan - designed to bring down the national waiting lists which see more than 6.5m people waiting for care - said trusts would release funding by hitting a target of carrying out 104% of the activity seen in June 2019. However, given the continued Covid-19 pressures on hospitals, this has not been applied.
Covid cases are understood to have risen through June and July. The Office for National Statistics estimated that one in 17 people had the virus in the UK the week ending July 13. There were, as of the end of May 96,448 people waiting for elective surgery at the Newcastle Hospitals NHS Trust.
Director of business, development and enterprise Dr Vicky McFarlane-Reid told the board: "The take-home message is that we are not achieving the targets set by NHS England. But despite not hitting targets, that money has been made available to us."
The trust has brought the number of people waiting more than two years down to 41 - all people waiting for complex spinal surgery - but has seen an increase in people waiting over a year. Newcastle Hospitals is hoping to confirm an expansion to its spinal surgery service in the coming weeks.
Dr McFarlane-Reid added: "Those targets were set assuming Covid levels would return to normal or at least manageable levels. It's fair to say that now, as the severity of the variants has declined, and as a consequence of the vaccinations, we are seeing in these numbers some patients who just happen to have Covid - but we are still treating patients for the virus too.
"There are over 40 Covid patients we are treating in beds which we would be otherwise using for our elective programme."
Executive chief nurse Maurya Cushlow added that the pressure of Covid-19 patients, combined with high attendance at A&E and other issues including staff sickness and the delayed demand seen as a result of people not coming forward for NHS treatment during the height of the pandemic all combined to make the trust's Covid-recovery complex.
She added: "The demand has changed. It's not just the case of going back to where we were. It's not an exact science - and we still have a really busy front door."
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'At one point we had 166 patients waiting': City hospitals boss tells of A&E pressures
