Patients are being “let down” by the Western Health and Social Care Trust’s occupational therapy (OT) services as waiting times reach over two years for adults and over three years for children, it has been warned.
Members of Derry City and Strabane District Council voiced their concerns as Trust representatives attended a meeting of the local authority’s Health and Community Committee meeting.
The Trust’s Head of Occupational Therapy Services, Patrick Conwell, told members there were 2,287 patients on the community OT waiting list, with 1,691 - or 74 % - breaching the Trust’s 13-week service target, and the longest wait being 132 weeks.
Paediatric OT has a waiting list of 463, with 425 (91%) exceeding the 13-week target, and the longest wait confirmed as 175 weeks.
Mr Conwell highlighted several factors which put additional pressure on “already stretched” paediatric OT services, including the increased awareness and recognition of neurodiversity, a lack of capacity elsewhere in health education, and increased mental health needs.
He said he “couldn’t put a number” on a potential staff increase needed to meet the target, but currently the Trust is “never in a position to operate on full capacity due to the impact of secondary referrals and allocation of cases”.
“Each month referral demand outweighs the capacity of the workforce,” he warned.
“If all our staff are in post, our potential capacity is 218 cases a month, which is well below the referral rate.
“A secondary referral is an open case and a long treatment tail and we receive another referral for the same patient, so while we deal with the secondary referral, it impacts our ability to get new allocations off the waiting list.”
SDLP councillor Rory Farrell said constituents were being “let down” by the waiting lists and asked what steps the Trust was taking to achieve the 13-week target, which was “not being achieved in any sense of the imagination”.
He added: “There’s a massive cohort of people who have been referred to OT, who need some sort of intervention, and it’s not happening in a timely manner.
“That’s frustrating for people across the city and district, for people in this chamber, because we’re being contacted about the waiting lists, and I’m sure it’s frustrating for the staff who want to help people as quickly as possible.
“The number of referrals is outstripping capacity, so we need to increase the capacity as the Trust has the lowest number of OTs across all Trusts in the North.
“So we know it’s challenging, but can you give us any indication of what changes and what interventions are required to enable the 13 weeks to be delivered?”
Mr Conwell said the Trust was “trying everything we can” to achieve the target, but it would require a significant investment.
“We have good service improvement ideas, the staff are motivated and we’re doing some overtime, but we’re well off the 13-week waiting list,” he said.
“There’s no doubt the geographical spread of the Trust causes us challenges, but we try use our resources as smartly as possible and do our best with what we have.
“But with the complexity of the case-load, and the demand that is coming in on top, we just don’t have the capacity.”
