Cuts to NHS services blow out already-long waiting times

Drastic cost-cutting ordered by the Government across the NHS has derailed its flagship policy to ensure that no patient waits longer than 18 weeks for hospital treatment. A leaked e-mail seen by The Times reveals that the Department of Health is so worried that new data showing that some patients will have to wait “in excess of one year” will be highlighted by the media that it has issued special guidance on how to spin the news.

The Government is expected to announce today that the NHS has made a surplus of more than 500 million pounds in the past financial year after an aggressive drive to reduce spending by health trusts. The e-mail says that more than half of patients are still waiting longer than 18 weeks for treatment. It calls into question the Government’s ability to honour its key health pledge that all patients would be treated within this time by the end of 2008.

The memo, containing advice from the Department of Health sent to local NHS communications managers, reveals that 52 per cent of hospital inpatients are waiting longer than 18 weeks across the country. Full data on the situation will be published for the first time by the Government tomorrow. Ministers have pledged that by the end of next year no patients should wait longer than that time after being referred by their doctors.

The e-mail contains advice from the Department of Health for local NHS communications managers on how to handle media inquiries on publication of the figures and outlines “overarching messages” for press officers to quote in an apparent attempt to spin the story. It says: “The [referral to treatment] data due to be published on 7 June is a brand new data collection . . . While this new measurement – from referral to treatment – better reflects the patient experience, there are some issues for communicators to be aware of. “The data will show variations in referral to treatment waiting times across your area by provider and commissioner. It will also show differences by specialty. “There will be some long waits – of up to, and in excess of one year, in some areas. “There is a risk that the media’s attention will focus around long waits, and make claims that these new, more transparent measures of waiting times, undermine the effort to date to tackle waiting in the NHS.”

The e-mail, circulated by a press officer from the South Central Strategic Health Authority (SHA), appears to have been sent in error to a number of local MPs, including David Cameron. Peter Campion, the SHA’s head of communications and author of the e-mail, writes that the waiting time figures “have potential to generate negative inquiries locally”, but warns colleagues that they are “hamstrung” to prepare responses before the local data is revealed. The memo also suggests that differences seen across regions might be used as further evidence for a “postcode lottery” of treatment in the NHS.

Patricia Hewitt, the Health Secretary, is expected to announce today that the health service underspent by up to 500 million last year. She put pressure on local health chiefs to make savings after promising to resign if the NHS went into the red in 2006-07. But the drive to balance the books is thought to have come at the expense of other services, and attempts to cut waiting times. The 18-week target, set in 2004, is widely considered to be among the most ambitious of the Government’s aims for the NHS. A baseline estimate published in December suggested that 35 per cent of patients across the country were treated within this time.

At that time up to a quarter of patients needing operations such as hip or knee replacements were estimated to wait between one and two years for surgery, with a small number waiting longer than this. The figures showed that most specialities treat between 30 and 50 per cent of inpatients within 18 weeks. In trauma and orthopaedics the figure is only 20 per cent. The Government has set an interim target of 85 per cent of admitted patients and 90 per cent of nonadmitted to be treated within 18 weeks by March next year.

A spokesperson for the Department of Health said that the data concerning waiting times would be set out tomorrow. “This data is bound by the publication protocols of national statistics and we will not be commenting ahead of publication,” she said

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Your government will protect you -- again

An Australian aged care system is overseen by lazy, fat-bottomed bureaucrats who don't give a damn as long as all the boxes are ticked

NURSING homes found to be neglecting, mistreating or providing poor care to patients are being protected by a government-appointed agency, according to aged care critics. The agency is lacking in transparency and reliant on residents and staff too scared to speak out, they say. The watchdog is also accused of being too reliant on paperwork by aged care management and not investigating what is happening in patients' rooms. The frequency of audits by the ACSAA has also been called into question.

And critics also claim the Aged Care Standards and Accreditation Agency, which is responsible for checking the standards of nursing homes throughout Australia, does not provide a true and accurate picture of what is happening in homes because it fails to disclose past reports on its website. The Courier-Mail can confirm aged care facilities which have been sanctioned in the past for horrific standards have their damning reports taken off the ACSAA's website once problems have been "fixed".

Agedcarecrisis.com founder Lynda Saltarelli said this system was protecting homes and failing consumers as it denied future residents and their families access to a home's track record. Ms Saltarelli said some homes were repeat offenders, but consumers had no way of knowing this. Diane Bates, founder of Daniels Shield (Doesn't Allow Neglect In Elderly Lives), said as a former aged care worker, she knew staff were drilled on what to tell the agency when inspections were made - and many residents interviewed were too scared to tell the truth in fear of being thrown out. "Most of their checking is done by checking the bookwork," Ms Bates said. "Now, if I tick a box and say I just won Gold Lotto, it doesn't mean to say I did."

But an ACSAA spokesman defended the agency's reporting rules, saying that while past reports were not on the website anybody wanting a copy of an older report could request it. "That said, the most recent report is usually the most relevant," the spokesman said. He also said 10 per cent of residents or relatives representing them were always interviewed privately and this was always cross-checked with the paperwork compiled.

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For greatest efficiency, lowest cost and maximum choice, ALL hospitals and health insurance schemes should be privately owned and run -- with government-paid vouchers for the very poor and minimal regulation. Both Australia and Sweden have large private sector health systems with government reimbursement for privately-provided services so can a purely private system with some level of government reimbursement or insurance for the poor be so hard to do?

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there are mirrors of this site here and here.

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