NHS Grampian’s chief executive has apologised to patients after it emerged more than 70 operations were postponed, due to lack of staff and space, at the region’s flagship hospital last month.
Health chiefs have admitted a total of 73 theatre operations were cancelled for “capacity or non-clinical reasons” at Aberdeen Royal Infirmary in January, from a total of 1,248 scheduled.
The hospital has faced increasing pressure over the winter period in addition to long-term challenges such as an ageing population, the NHS board heard yesterday.
Chief executive, Malcolm Wright, responded by saying that tackling long-term staff shortages would help address the problem in the future.
He added: “The demographics of the population are changing and we see a lot of medical patients coming into our hospitals over the winter period.
“This does have a consequence and knock-on impact on elective surgical work. Our intensive care facilities are used more by medical patients and surgical beds and surgical wards are also used more by medical patients and that means some of our elective surgical work has dropped.
“What we have been doing this morning is apologising to patients who have been postponed. We’ll contact you and let you know when we can reschedule your operation. We recognise the distress this causes.
“Money is always a challenge in all parts of public service, but money isn’t the root of this, it’s the ability to attract and retain high quality professional staff.
“I was saying to the board we’ve actually made a lot of progress on this, but we still have a long, long way to go.”