Nottingham family's anger over wait for operation to remove daughter's extra fingers and toes

A Nottingham family fear their one-year-old daughter is being held back after delays to an operation to remove additional digits.

Evelyn Woodland, who turns one on Saturday, September 30, was born with polydactyly, meaning she has one extra finger on each hand and toe on each foot.Her parents said the failure of Nottingham University Hospitals (NUH) to carry out a "simple procedure" to remove them had resulted in Evelyn struggling to try and take her first steps.

The trust said it could not comment but was "very sorry" for the distress caused by the postponements.Mum, Emily Dumore-Revill, said: "Now she's older, her feet are affecting her walking.

"She's trying to stand up and everything but she can't get balanced, I can't put shoes on her because her extra toes are in the way."I struggle putting socks on her and I've noticed they do hurt if she catches them, and that's the same if she catches her hands."

The 26-year-old from Bilborough said midwives at the Queen's Medical Centre failed to refer her daughter for the procedure after she was born."I didn't even know they hadn't put a referral in until I didn't hear anything. I went to the GP when she was six months old and said 'she can't keep going on like this, it's not fair'," she said."It's annoying because if that referral had gone through we wouldn't still be in this situation waiting for them to be done."

After a referral was made by her GP, Evelyn was booked in for a procedure in June, however, this was cancelled due to staffing issues.Her care was then briefly transferred over to University Hospitals Birmingham while she had an operation to address her glaucoma, but a planned procedure on her digits was again cancelled in August due to not having the right specialists available.

Evelyn's care was subsequently moved back to NUH, which informed the family they would have to wait for "quite a while".

"She's trying to do what normal babies do at her age but she's struggling. They've not told me how long the wait is, I doubt it's going to be this year. I have a feeling that this is going to set her back," said Ms Dumore-Revill."In August they told me it was a long waiting list and that I could be waiting quite a while.

"GPs and health visitors have said it's probably better to go privately but not everybody can afford it."

She said the operation would cost £5,000 if they went private, due to the fact Evelyn would need to be given a general anaesthetic and have physiotherapy afterwards."It's very frustrating, I understand the NHS is under pressure but I've been messed about going backwards and forwards," she added. Evelyn's dad, Curtis Woodland, said he had been left "angry and upset" by the delays."I understand they're doing the best they can. We've got to go from square one again, it's frustrating," said the 27-year-old carer. "She's really struggling with mobility. They said they would do it from the get-go but they haven't.

"She's growing up fast and if it's going to be years I worry about her going to school, you know what children are like. I worry she'll be self-conscious about it."

Dr Keith Girling, medical director at NUH, said: “While we cannot comment on individual cases, we do recognise the challenges faced by our patients and their families when operations are postponed and it is not a decision we take lightly.

"We are very sorry for the distress cancellations and delays cause to our patients and our staff are working incredibly hard to limit these and ensure patients with the most urgent medical needs are prioritised whilst demand on our services remains high.“While we’re making improvements we still have more to do and we understand how distressing these long waiting times are for our patients.

"We will continue to do all that we can and work with our partners across the health system to ensure patients receive treatment as quickly as possible."