MANAGERS at Oxford’s Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre have pledged to make improvements after patients raised a series of concerns about services.

A report by Oxfordshire’s official health watchdog said patients were concerned about cancelled operations, communication by doctors and delays to treatment at the specialist hospital.

The Oxfordshire Local Involvement Network (Link) invited patients to a workshop to share their experiences of the NOC’s outpatients’ dep-artment, which deals with 20,000 appointments a year.

Patients at the hospital, in Windmill Road, Headington, also voiced concerns about the quality of disabled access and the amount of time spent in pre-operation assessments.

A spokesman for the NOC trust said it recognised the patients’ concerns and was already conducting an audit into waiting times.

The spokesman said the patients’ workshop had been very helpful, adding: “It provided the opportunity to talk about just how well our out-patient services are being delivered, what areas need to be improved and to understand from our patients’ perspective the main issues they felt needed to be addressed.

“We regularly seek feedback from our patients, and this day-long event provided an excellent forum for detailed discussions and debate on the things that really matter to our patients.

“We have taken on board all comments and suggestions and are working to implement changes where possible.”

A Link spokesman said: “We asked people to make suggestions for improvements in three areas: before, during and after the appointment, also to feed back what works well and together form a list of key priorities for change.

“We also gathered comments from people who could not attend but who had been a patient within the past 18 months.”

Five issues have been flagged up for priority action:

  • Long waits at pre-op assessment appointments
  • Inadequate communication between the hospital and GPs, including copying letters to patients
  • The number of cancelled operations.
  • Better explanation of treatment
  • Disabled facilities.