Patients ‘let down’ as Derry & Strabane reps hear some children and adults waiting years for Occupational Therapy

Following a proposal to meet with representatives, put forward by SDLP councillor Rory Farrell at May’s Full Council Meeting, members received a deputation from Trust representatives at this month’s Health and Community Committee meeting on Thursday, November 14.

Head of Occupational Therapy Services, Patrick Conwell, told members that there were 2,287 patients on the community OT waiting list with 1,691, or 74 percent, 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 a longest wait confirmed as 175 weeks.

Mr Conwell highlighted several factors which put additional pressure on “already stretched” paediatric OT services, including increased awareness and recognition of neurodiversity, a lack of capacity elsewhere in health education, and increased mental health needs.

Mr Conwell said he “couldn’t put a number” on a potential staff increase needed to reach 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.”

Councillor Farrell said constituents were being “let down” and asked what steps the Trust were taking to achieve the 13-week target, which was “not being achieved in any sense of the imagination”.

“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.”

Andrew Balfour,

Local Democracy Reporter.