Posted on 06/13/2007 1:18:59 PM PDT by Kimmers
Almost half a million NHS patients are waiting more than a year for hospital treatment, official figures showed yesterday.
One person in eight who is admitted to hospital for a non-emergency procedure has to wait more than 52 weeks between being referred by a GP and being treated. There are also large variations in waiting times across the country.
The figures were revealed yesterday as Andy Burnham, the health minister, claimed that the Government was on track to deliver on its "historic" promise effectively to abolish hospital waiting lists by the end of next year. Previous waiting list figures have not included so-called "hidden waits" including those for diagnosis and referral between hospital specialists.
advertisementBut in 2004 ministers promised to include the whole time from referral by a doctor to the start of treatment.
They pledged that by this new measure no one would wait longer than 18 weeks by the end of 2008.
The Department of Health yesterday released statistics showing the proportion of patients admitted to hospital and treated within this time was 48 per cent in March - up from 35 per cent in December.
Mr Burnham said: "These are very exciting set of figures of which the NHS should be very proud.
"They show we are well on course to deliver what I believe is a historic goal of ending waiting lists as we have known them in the year of the NHS's 60th anniversary.
"Over almost the entire country waiting lists fell last year. They fell quickly last year and they are now falling even more quickly.
"This represents the culmination of the 10-year programme to deal with waiting that the Government began in 1997."
Approximately four million patients are admitted to hospitals in England each year while some eight million have outpatient care.
The Department of Health's figures, which relate only to those admitted to hospitals for treatment, show 12.4 per cent of the approximately 330,000 patients treated in March had waited longer than a year. At this rate the annual number of patients waiting this long would be 491,000.
The report shows there are wide variations in the proportion of patients being treated within 18 weeks across the country with some local primary care trusts (PCTs) performing much better than others.
The six best-performing are Leicester City (98 per cent of patients treated within 18 weeks), Solihull Care (94 per cent), South Birmingham (94 per cent), Heart of Birmingham Teaching (93 per cent), Leicester County and Rutland (90 per cent) and Tower Hamlets (87 per cent).
The worst-performing are Swindon (22 per cent), Brighton and Hove City (23 per cent), Mid Essex (25 per cent), Enfield (26 per cent), West Hertfordshire (27 per cent) and Hull (29 per cent).
There were also variations between treatment specialities, with only a quarter of orthopaedic patients being treated within 18 weeks. The best performing speciality was geriatric medicine in which the proportion was 80 per cent. Previous statistics have not dealt with the whole wait between GP referral and first treatment.
In June 1997 there were 339,000 patients in England waiting 13 weeks or more for their first appointment to see a hospital specialist. In April this year the figure was 179,000.
Niall Dickson, chief executive of the King's Fund health think tank, said: "It is a credit to the health service that waiting times have continued to fall steadily at a time of financial pressure.
"However there must be concern over the widespread variations in performance across different parts of the country which mean very few patients in London, the South Coast and east of England are being treated within 18 weeks."
Andrew Lansley, the shadow health secretary, said: "The NHS must be supported to improve services and end long waits for treatment, but 18 weeks is not sufficiently ambitious for many treatments. On the Continent waits of this kind would be regarded as outrageous. But a one-size-fits-all target will distort clinical care and damage the NHS."
That’s British notation for June 9th, 2007. They put the day first, then the month.
Thank you, now that makes sense. I will remember that for the future.....
HillaryCare.....No thanks!
Oh...
My mistake. The hospital stay was a bit spartan though.
Oh yes...cutting the waiting time down to 4 1/2 months. That's really something to crow about!
Now back to Canada. As a steel worker I contributed to a Group Health Centre. 3000 of us checked off $130. Physicians and a pharmacy were employed in the new building. It was so successful, the government took over. (Damn).
Again and I repeat, if any system is opened to those who do not have to pay, it puts an impossible burden on that system.
A Provincial government was aware of this. They enacted legislation to charge an paltry initial fee of ten dollars per visit. The do-gooders howled to high heaven, I believe the government backed off. It is a proven fact that many poor people spend over a third of their disposable income on either lottery tickets, alcohol, tobacco and fast food.
From Newfoundland a study. Of the users of a medical care system, 6% of the population use 24% of the services. One woman used 72 visits to 13 doctors. Bottom line is that if a free service is offered, people will use it- whether or not they need it.
Man I wish we had access to that kind of universal health care here in the US.
Anyone care to wager on the accuracy of the predictive powers of socialist government? ... I didn't think so.
18 weeks...thats 4 1/2 months. Cancer tumors can grow and spread very quickly. In G.B. cancer of any kind is a death sentence it would seem (unless you're connected/royalty).
18 weeks...thats 4 1/2 months. Cancer tumors can grow and spread very quickly.
Um - that’s 18 weeks for a non-emergency procedure. Cancer is hardly non-emergency.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.