500,000 wait over a year for NHS treatment

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12 April 2012

Half a million people are still waiting more than a year to be treated on the NHS, ministers admitted yesterday.

The figures revealed the size of the mountain the Government has to climb to meet its target that no one should wait longer than 18 weeks from referral to treatment by the end of 2008.

Only 18 months before that aspiration is due to be achieved, one in eight of patients who completed treatment in March had waited more than a year.

In addition, there are huge variations across the NHS. As many as 98 per cent of patients in Leicester, where Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt is an MP, are treated within the target time.

At the other end of the scale, only 22 per cent are being treated within 18 weeks in Swindon.

The worst performing primary care trusts are concentrated in London, on the south coast and in the east of England.

The Health Department admitted yesterday that around 500,000 people in England are experiencing waiting times of a year or more.

The 18-week target measures the time from seeing a GP for the first time to receiving treatment.

Ministers have set an interim target of 85 per cent of patients being treated within 18 weeks by March next year.

The figures for this March showed that fewer than half of patients - 48 per cent - had waited for less than the target of 18 weeks, although ministers say this is higher than six months ago, when 35 per cent were seen in that time, and far better than when the Conservatives were in power.

Critics also point out that the waiting time depends on the type of treatment needed. Only 25 per cent of patients having orthopaedic surgery were treated within 18 weeks.

Other long waits were in oral surgery, neurosurgery, ear nose and throat, ophthalmology and neurology.

This compares with 76 per cent of gastroenterology patients who were seen within 18 weeks. There were also short waits in geriatric medicine, thoracic medicine and cardiothoracic surgery.

Health minister Andy Burnham

said: "These statistics show we still have a challenge ahead of us to meet the highest standards but overall they are hugely encouraging.

"The data shows that there are particular challenges in orthopaedics, which is why we have brought forward plans to give patients free choice of any hospital in the country for their operation."

But Conservative health spokesman Andrew Lansley said: "After ten years of Labour claims that they have abolished long waits for treatment, only now do we have figures which show the reality for many patients.

"The NHS must be supported to improve services and end long waits for treatment but 18 weeks is not sufficiently ambitious for many treatments. It can and should be less."

For the Liberal Democrats, Norman Lamb said: "These figures demonstrate how far we have to go to catch up with most other developed countries.

"Behind the statistics, thousands of sick people are still waiting more than a year for hospital treatment. This is a daily tragedy.

"It is true that we are still paying the price for chronic underinvestment by the Tories, but there is no excuse for these figures given the extra funds invested by Labour."

The Government's two previous waiting time targets have already been met.

These were 13 weeks from GP referral to seeing a consultant in hospital, and six months from the consultant deciding an operation was needed to its taking place.

However there has until recently been no measurement of the time between the first meeting with the consultant and the decision to go ahead with the operation.

This time is taken up with scans and tests, but a lack of available staff and equipment to carry them out meant that these "hidden waits" were often very lengthy.

• When retired lecturer Rachel Jenkins needed an urgent hip replacement, her doctor told her the waiting list for an operation on the NHS would be at least a year.

So she spent just over £6,350 to have private treatment in France.

Mrs Jenkins, 77, pictured above, said: 'When you get to my age, a year is a very long time before you can be mobile again.

"The trip cost me around half what it would have done at home. The French clinic was immaculate, with no cases of MRSA."

Two months after her operation a year ago, Mrs Jenkins, from York, was completely mobile again.

She added: "I would advise anyone who has waiting list problems to head abroad if they can raise the cash."

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