The average waiting time for operations on the NHS has gone up since 2000. This is not a fact that the Government advertises, but it is true.
It was referred to in The Financial Times on Wednesday, in which there were a couple of very good stories on NHS waiting lists .
They basically argued that the government's goal of getting the maximum wait to 18 weeks for a non-emergency operation on the NHS by 2008 would be missed without additional capacity and more reform. To put it more bluntly, the target will almost certainly be missed.
The target apparently includes three stages between a patient going to a GP and having an operation:
1. From the initial visit to the GP to the first outpatient appointment.
2. From that outpatient appointment to any diagnostic procedure like a CT or MRI scan.
3. and "finally onto the operation itself once a decision to admit has been taken" (I am not clear whether or not this includes the time between the diagnostic test and the subsequent outpatient appointment)
The average time for stage 1 has fallen since March 2000, falling from 7.7 weeks to 6.8 weeks (as at October 2005).
The time for stage two is, at present, unknown.
The time for stage three, from the decision to admit up to the operation has gone up, from 6.1 weeks to 7.4 weeks (as at March 2005). (The well-publicised waiting list figures are based on this stage 3).
So the overall time, excluding the unknown time of stage 2, has actually risen since 2000, from 13.8 weeks to 14.2 weeks. So much for the government propaganda about the great improvement in waiting for treatment.
The government always boasts about the waiting lists. But the above figures are the time people actually wait, on average.
As the FT says,
"...in order to eliminate the relatively small tail of very long waits (more than six, 12 and 24 months) has meant that paradoxically, the average wait patients have faced at the time they get an operation has been going up in recent years, not down.
"Since March 2000, the median wait for an operation has risen from 6.1 weeks to 7.4, a 20 per cent increase, when it needs to fall to an average of about four weeks if the overall 18 week target is to be met."
This is a kind way of referring to the fact that hospital priorities have been shifted away from treating the most urgent cases most urgently to giving priority to patients who are getting near the figure of six months waiting. So, as a previous posting has mentioned, it has now happened that people with broken bones have been kept lying in hospital beds while those with far less urgent conditions have been treated ahead of them.
The boasts of the government on long waiting should be thought of as an admission that people with less urgent needs are being treated ahead of those with greater needs. It is truly disgusting. No wonder so many doctors are angry about it.
Unfortunately I cannot link to the full articles since they are by subscription only. But here is a link to the letter in response by Sir Nigel Crisp, chief government civil servant propandist for the government on healthcare (his formal title is different).
Posted by James Bartholomew • Indexed in NHS
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Remember when the 'target' for glass windows was set in square metres -- & the glass was so thin it shattered? And when the 'target' was changed to 'weight' you couldn't lift the windows? So what's new?
Posted by: Sudha Shenoy at January 7, 2006 11:02 AM