"Daughter's ent surgery cancelled on the day"

Dear Reviewer We are sorry your daughter’s operation was cancelled – especially as this happened so late in the day. We know cancelled operations are frustrating and worrying for people affected such your family and we do everything possible not to cancel patients on the day of surgery. It is not something we do lightly, and if we have to cancel an operation it is inevitably because of the numbers of emergency patients we are treating. The high volume of emergencies at the moment means that on occasions we do not have enough beds for all the patients to recover in after their planned surgery. We have to make the decision between ‘life saving’ and not immediately life threatening or routine operations, which is why cancellations only affect patients having planned surgery. We continue to look at ways of balancing our elective (planned work) and emergency demands and how we may ring fence beds so that emergencies do not impact on planned surgery. We very much hope you have been given a new appointment date now. If you have not, please email communications@uhl-tr.nhs.uk, outlining your concerns, along with your daughter's name, address, date of birth and the name of her consultant - if you know it. And we'll ensure you get a new date. Sincerely Communications Team Leicester's Hospitals