Supplementary memorandum submitted by
the Northern Ireland Audit Office
Questions 122-123 (Mr Bacon): Actual Use of Theatre
Capacity
The Committee of Public Accounts at their meeting
on 2 November 2004 examined a report by the Comptroller and Auditor
General for Northern Ireland entitled The Use of Operating
Theatres in the Northern Ireland Health and Personal Social Services
(NIA 111/02, HC 522.) Mr Bacon (Q 122) asked the C&AG if it
were possible that his office, together with the NAO, could assemble
a chart similar to the one on page 66 of the C&AG's Report
(Figure 8—Operating Theatres: Actual Use of Theatre Capacity,
showing sessions held) but with a much larger sample so that the
Committee could see a comparison of all the English Trusts with
all those in Northern Ireland, as to the utilisation of capacity
of operating theatres.
NAO has referred us to the Audit Commission's
2003 Acute Hospital Portfolio Review of Operating Theatres which
compared theatre utilisation in acute hospitals across England
and Wales.
Audit Commission Acute Hospital Portfolio Review
DHSSPS has contributed to this Review by commissioning
a comparative review of theatre utilisation in Northern Ireland.
The basis of the work undertaken was the collection of data across
12 acute trusts (16 hospitals) in September/October 2002 and comparing
it with equivalent data collected across 240 acute Trusts in Great
Britain in May/June 2002 as part of the Audit Commission's Acute
Hospital Portfolio Review. One of the key relevant indicators
used was "total actual operating hours/week per commissioned
theatre". The following comparisons between NI and GB for
this indicator were made:
Total Actual Operating Hours/Week per
Commission Theatre
| NI Only | GB and NI
|
| Hours per week | Hours per week
|
| Upper Quartile | 24.6 | 29.0
|
| Mean | 21.2 | 25.2
|
| Lower Quartile | 15.0 | 21.3
|
| | |
Four of the 16 NI hospitals were on or above the GB mean,
and two of them were in the upper quartile. However, 12 NI hospitals
were below the mean, with eight in the lower quartile. The range
of hours per week, including GB and NI, was from 47.16 to 9.8.
Causeway was the lowest ranked hospital in NI with a score of
9.8. The Ulster Hospital was the highest ranked NI hospital with
38.03 per week.
According to the Audit Commission, a well-used theatre unit
would average more than 40 hours use per theatre per week, but
very few unites are actually this busy and the average unit does
only 24 hours work per theatre per week, but this varies between
Trusts in England and Wales from eight to 57 hours.
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