Victoria Macdonald, Health and Social Care Editor at Channel 4 News visited Queen’s Hospital on Wednesday 10 January, ahead of the publication of the monthly national NHS performance statistics.

She was keen to speak to our staff about how they were coping with what is traditionally the busiest time of the year for the NHS, in the wake of the six-day junior doctor strike, the longest in NHS history.

Our Chief Executive, Matthew Trainer, said: “I hope we see a resolution this year as there are thousands of people who should have been treated and haven’t.

“The year I really hope we don’t have to keep rolling out the strike model once a month because it’s not sustainable.”

Across the strikes, we’ve postponed over 16,000 outpatient appointment and almost 1,200 non-urgent surgeries.

Despite this, it was recognised in the piece broadcast on Channel 4 News that our Trust was the most improved in England at reducing waits for those who are most seriously ill (Type 1).

In January 2023, our performance against the national target was 32 per cent. The hard work of our teams over the year saw this increase to 50 per cent by December.

And last month, nearly 5,000 more patients were treated within four hours in our A&Es and Urgent Treatment Centres (UTC) compared with the previous December. This is despite the fact that in recent months, Queen’s has seen the largest increase in ambulances (from the London Ambulance Service) of any hospital in the capital – up from 1,636 in December 2022 to more than 2,109 last month.

During their visit, Victoria and her team were also invited to see our new Surgical Assessment Unit, which opened in late December and has already seen over 80 patients.

The unit is for patients who need surgical care and reduces delays in them getting the treatment they need. It’s one of the ways we’re reduce waits in A&E.