200 surgeries cancelled due to 'extreme heat'

Approximately 200 elective procedures have been cancelled in Jersey over the summer months due to the failure of chiller units in operating theatres, hospital bosses have said.

The scale of cancellations at Jersey Hospital has been confirmed in a report to August's meeting of the island's healthcare oversight board.

Managing director Andy Weir said efforts had been made to "minimise and manage the disruption", but acknowledged staff had been working in "far from ideal circumstances".

The board agreed on "further work to assess resilience" and said a post-incident review was underway.

In his submission to the health board, Weir said the summer had been "characterised by high and extreme temperatures".

He said the "failure of chiller units" in May, followed by a second chiller failure in June, were responsible for the number of cancellations.

Three operating theatres were closed temporarily because of the issue.

Weir also noted "excessive temperatures across the estate, including on Robin and Orchard wards.

He said hospital teams had worked hard to "mitigate the issues arising from continued hot weather".

Weir said a "targeted recovery programme" was underway to "minimise the impact" of summer disruption on waiting times, however "scheduled theatre ventilation maintenance" would affect it.

A report detailing the impact of the hot weather on services said the May heatwave had "highlighted the increasing vulnerability of the estate to extreme weather events".

It said while "clinical services were maintained safely", the associated risks could not be fully eliminated until a new hospital was in operation.

The board expressed concerns about the "ageing hospital estate" and agreed there would be more work to assess "options to improve estate and equipment resilience".

In a separate financial statement to the board, it was noted the "lack of cooling system resilience" would have a financial knock-on, with "fewer private patient procedures performed, and therefore income collected".

Follow BBC Jersey on X and Facebook. Send your story ideas to channel.islands@bbc.co.uk.