Nearly two in three eye patients of the Royal Berkshire hospital are waiting over 18 weeks to see a specialist, new figures suggest.
Government targets state that 90 per cent of patients should be seen within that time, but hospital figures obtained from February show that just 41 per cent of ophthalmic patients were.
Worse, some were waiting as long as 35 weeks.
Berkshire West Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) have said current referral times are “less than satisfactory”.
They said in a statement that they were working on a “recovery plan” with health bosses and it was “already paying dividends”.
They added that the majority of patients waiting a long time to see a specialist had cataracts, “where the clinical risk is low”.
However Fiona Tinsley, Clinical Negligence Solicitor at Clear Law said that the issues must be rectified without delay to ensure patient safety at the hospital.
“It is simply unacceptable that so many eye patients are waiting over four months to see a specialist for treatment at the hospital,” she said.
“Identifying some of the patients’ issues as low risk seems a strange move, as there are risks associated with every procedure.
The CCGs have, along with NHS England, increased funding temporarily “to help clear the current backlog”, adding that they “expect that national targets for ophthalmology will be met by October this year”.
The Reading-based hospital declined to comment.
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