24. NHS Waiting Lists
The NHS is treating more people, with the lowest waiting lists, than ever before. And the overall NHS deficit is coming down.
From Reform:
One of the Government's main claims is that waiting times for hospital treatment are going down. It is true that the longest waiting times are being eliminated. But the average waiting time for hospital treatment is little changed and on one measure has actually increased. For the time between decision to admit and admission to hospital for all patients treated in the financial year, the median waiting time actually rose from 43 days in 1999-00 to 54 days in 2004-05.
Median waiting time in days for patients treated in financial year
All patients
1999-00 43
2000-01 44
2001-02 47
2002-03 49
2003-04 50
2004-05 54
(Source: Hospital Episode Statistics, Department of Health)
From Reform:
One of the Government's main claims is that waiting times for hospital treatment are going down. It is true that the longest waiting times are being eliminated. But the average waiting time for hospital treatment is little changed and on one measure has actually increased. For the time between decision to admit and admission to hospital for all patients treated in the financial year, the median waiting time actually rose from 43 days in 1999-00 to 54 days in 2004-05.
Median waiting time in days for patients treated in financial year
All patients
1999-00 43
2000-01 44
2001-02 47
2002-03 49
2003-04 50
2004-05 54
(Source: Hospital Episode Statistics, Department of Health)
As for the overall NHS deficit, it was £512 million, more than double the amount of the previous year. Even then the National Audit Office and the Audit Commission warned that £512 million may turn out to be a considerable under-estimate because it is based on unaudited data.
posted by Hazel Blears at 9:14 PM
1 Comments:
I wish the government would get in touch with reality on the NHS. The EHS, English Health Service is almost bankrupt, Hazel.
Please step outside these numbers and see that reality. Stop doing policy by numbers, stop setting targets and please learn how to run the NHS and other services properly and equitably.
Speak to us, a broad spectrum of service users, not just your Party members and Quangos. The majority of us out here aren't even Labour voters.
A large part of the public service problem for those of us in England is that your government long ago took a decision to discriminate against the c 50 million of us here - by asset stripping our services and using the money to give vast subsidies to the c 5-6 million people in Scotland.
I understand that England's taxpayers now subsidise Scotland to the tune of c £16 billion a year. As a result, the Scots now have elitist health care and higher education provision while England's Health Service is going bankrupt. What possible justification could there be for that?
I know what you're going to say. Scots are lower paid, more deprived, have higher mortality rates, that justifies regional adjustments. But that's rubbish.
Yes, average pay rates for Scots are below those in England, but these are entirely offset by their far lower cost of living.
Scots do have higher mortality rates than us - and that needs adressing - but a major factor in that is surely what research has shown to be the higher consumption of alcohol and problem drinkers in Scotland.
There's no way on this earth you can justify creating the elitist conditions you and your government have for Scots cancer patients. They have access to life prolonging and life quality enhancing drugs which you deny to cancer patients in England.
How can you live with that, Hazel? I couldn't, I just can't understand how your government could do this to us.
Don't you realise how much hostility your discriminatory funding produces here? How would you feel if a member of your family with cancer was denied the only treatment that would help - which Scots cancer patients are routinely prescribed? Little wonder so many of us in England feel your government, to put it mildly, doesn't give two hoots about the people of England. We have other reasons for feeling that too.
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