Staffordshire's main hospital trust has missed its target of completely eliminating 15-month waits for treatment.

An estimated 182 patients at University Hospitals of North Midlands were still waiting 65 weeks or more at the end of September – NHS England expected the trust to reduce it to zero by this point.

And while the number is continuing to fall, managers do not expect the target will be hit by the end of October either. UHNM board members were told that delays affecting specialties such as respiratory and ear, nose and throat were having an impact on the overall figures.

More positively, just a handful of patients are now waiting 78 weeks, while none at all are waiting two years for treatment. Katy Thorpe, interim chief operating officer, told the board meeting that the trust had been working to achieve a 'continual reduction' across all these categories.

More positively, no patients are now waiting more than two years for treatment (SWNS).

She said: "It's not going down as quickly as we'd like, and we continue those weekly conversations on how maintain the trajectory that we've got. From a 65-week perspective we do have some particular specialties that are causing us some delays in getting our patients treatment, particularly respiratory and ENT.

"We were tasked, from a national perspective, with getting 65-week waits down to zero by the end of September. This isn't going to happen for us. At the moment we're predicting around 182 patients in September, and around 66 patients in October.

"We are continuing to try to reduce that number, but the reality of some of our more challenged specialties is that we'll have that residual number. The good news is that we're reporting zero 104-week waits, and we're down to 11 patients who are waiting 78 weeks. "

Ms Thorpe said that with winter approaching, UHNM was now seeing increases in the number of patient-related delays, including those caused by patients being unavailable for treatment due to having colds or flu.

The board heard that recent work to increase endoscopy capacity was helping the trust reduce backlogs both in cancer and elective treatment.

UHNM is drawing up plans to ensure, by next March, that no patients are waiting more than 52 weeks for treatment. A total of 3,319 patients were waiting a year for treatment in August.

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