HOSPITALS will be a ‘different place’ in the future, according to Dorset County Hospital’s Chief Medical Officer.

Professor Alistair Hutchison recalled there was ‘a lot of the fear of the unknown’ and expressed his own fears when the coronavirus pandemic hit the country. Yet, he felt confident Dorset County Hospital and the NHS could effectively handle the pandemic.

Prof Hutchison said that while the vaccination programme continues and a roadmap out of lockdown restrictions is under way, the pandemic has ‘changed the hospital in many ways’.

He said: “It has changed the hospital in many ways - both physically and that we will wearing PPE in most areas indefinitely now.

“It has altered how patients feel about hospitals and I think the hospital will be a different place in the future but it will always be there for those who need urgent hospital care.”

It comes as it could take up to three years for waiting times at Dorset County Hospital to return to pre-Covid levels whilst some treatment backlogs are cleared.

Most cancer and clinically urgent appointments and procedures have continued to take place at the Dorchester-based hospital during the Covid-19 pandemic, but some patients have had their planned procedure or appointment ‘postponed where clinically appropriate.

Prof Hutchison previously commented that there has been a ‘huge effort’ to ease the waiting list for surgeries and is currently planning how to tackle waiting lists in certain departments.

Speaking generally about the pandemic's impact on waiting list times, he said: “For other specialist surgeries that require patients to be admitted to hospital, like knee and hip operations, the waiting lists across the NHS, including Dorset County Hospital, are huge.

“It will take time for it to recover, and we are looking at two to three years to get back to those waiting times before the pandemic.”

He added: “The key is bed space in the hospital because if the patient needs two days in hospital, there is a limit of operations that can be held during a week based on number of beds.

“Traditionally, the NHS would do most of those during summer months when beds were quieter and we get fewer admissions in the accident and emergency department. In the winter, we don’t do many of those because the beds are full.”