Airedale NHS Trust has been given an extra £200,000 by Bradford and North Yorkshire Health Authorities to help cope with a backlog of operations caused by the winter flu epidemic.

Staff have been working overtime at Airedale General Hospital, Steeton, to catch up on the operations which had to be cancelled when beds were taken up by people suffering from influenza.

It has involved opening theatres on Saturday mornings to increase the number of minor operations each week.

Janet Crouch, Airedale NHS Trust's finance boss, said: "We have been given an extra £200,000 to spend on extra sessions.

"We were given targets to reduce the time people had to wait on the list to not more than 13 weeks. We have to meet that target by March 31, so we have been having extra sessions to make sure we can reach it."

She said new targets would be produced by the health authorities for next year and the trust would be looking at those shortly.

Unison representative, Linda Dalton, said: "A morning list has been introduced on Saturdays to deal with the minor operations. It's not every week - there were two sessions last month - and staff are happy to do the work and earn some overtime."

She stressed that if patients needed to stay overnight to recover, there were beds available.

Staff representative, Steve Fowler, said: "Staff have no problems with it because we realise there's a shortfall on the numbers of patients treated and we are doing everything we can to address it.

"We are employed in a 24-hour service so to my knowledge staff aren't complaining about the situation."

Director of nursing, Sue Franks, praised staff, adding: "They have working hard - the effort has been phenomenal."

The trust has seen a decrease in the number of in-patients and day cases waiting to be seen since the autumn, with figures down from 2,807 in November to 2,750 in January.

A spokesman for Bradford Hospitals Trust said the flu outbreak had not had the same impact on Bradford hospitals.

"Through good organisation, they were able to ensure that no planned surgery was postponed," he said.

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