Average NHS waiting times have RISEN under Labour - despite billions "invested"

Hospital waiting times are longer than under the Conservatives, despite 90billion pounds being ploughed into the health service this year alone. The average wait for treatment in hospital is now 49 days, up from 41 days in 1997, the year Labour took power with a promise to "save the NHS". Ministers say they have delivered on their promise to reduce very long waits. By the end of the year no one should wait more than 18 weeks compared with the 18-month waits which were common under the Tories.

But doctors said patients with serious illnesses were among those still waiting too long, while those with comparatively minor problems were being fast-tracked to meet the Government's 18-week target. Many of the big falls in waiting have been seen in conditions such as cataracts and dermatitis and eczema. Yet the figures, obtained by the BBC from the NHS Information Centre which collates statistics on health and social care, show that for some cancers average waiting has increased slightly.

Jonathan Fielden, chairman of the British Medical Association's consultants' committee, said: "All that has happened is that the Government has put an end to the really long waits and the really short waits. "Doctors have been stopped from using their clinical judgment and pushing people through the system when they need to. "Of course, it is good that the really long waits have gone, but it is wrong to say that all patient care has improved because of shorter waits."

Katherine Murphy, of the Patients' Association, said: "These figures make us really question whether patients are getting a better deal. "What concerns me is that patients with serious conditions may be waiting longer than they used to. That is wrong."

Labour has massively increased NHS funding after Tony Blair pledged to bring health spending up to the European average. The NHS budget this year is 90billion, up from 34billion when Labour came to power in 1997. The Treasury projects the total to rise to 110billion in 2010-11. Some of the extra cash that has been ploughed into the service has gone on employing more doctors and nurses and building new hospitals, all of which should bring waiting times down.

But more than half of the money has gone on hugely increased pay for GPs and hospital consultants, more NHS managers, and higher drugs costs. Little progress on reducing waiting times was made in the first years after Labour took power. Even by 2000, there were still 125,000 people waiting more than nine months. But the extra expenditure has seen long waits almost abolished. Ministers say an unavoidable effect of the push to reduce long waits has been to slightly increase the average wait, but this figure has has been coming down since hitting a high of 52 days in 2004/05.

Health minister Ben Bradshaw said: "Our waiting time targets were specifically designed to eradicate unacceptably long waits. "Under the Tories it was not uncommon to wait 18 months or more for an operation. "Tackling long waits leads to a short-term increase in the average wait as the backlog is cleared." Latest figures show that only 72 per cent of patients are waiting less than the Government target of 18 weeks, and that waiting times are rising in a quarter of trusts.

But Mr Bradshaw says he remains confident the NHS will meet its target. Commenting on the rise in average waiting times, Liberal Democrat health spokesman Norman Lamb said: "These figures massively undermine Labour's claims to have made a substantial difference to NHS waiting times." Andrew Lansley, Tory health spokesman, said: "This shows how the bigger picture gets neglected in order to meet the Government's top-down targets. "In meeting one target, another patient misses out. It is simply unfair."

However John Appleby, of the health think tank the King's Fund, said the Government was right to target long waits. "The whole point of the targets was to change clinical priorities, because doctors seemed content to put up with long waits for their patients - while patients were not content," he said. "Despite what the BMA say, there is no evidence that vital priorities such as urgent cases have been delayed. "One would expect the average wait to go up but it is now on the way down and we can expect that to continue."

• The NHS is heading for a 1.8billion surplus in England, just months after being forced to cut jobs and close wards. Ministers say the size of the surplus is just 2 per cent of turnover and makes good business sense, but patients' groups said it was equivalent to 1p off income tax.

Source





Australia: Incompetent and untrained public hospital staff kill young mother

Very dangerous to have a medical emergency in a public hospital -- where responsibility stops nowhere and where supervision is minimal -- despite hordes of "managers"



REBECCA MURRAY was pregnant and healthy when she was admitted to Bathurst Hospital, but a day after delivering her third baby by caesarean the 29-year-old was dead. She had hemorrhaged, but nurses only realised when they saw her bloodied sheets.

Two weeks earlier, the 36-week-pregnant mother and her husband, Jim, had posed for this family photo with their son and daughter, Emelia and Lachlan, who were awaiting the arrival of a brother or sister. On June 24 last year, however, Mr Murray was in the waiting room of the old Bathurst Hospital, relieved that his newborn daughter, Grace, was healthy but unaware that down the corridor his young wife lay dying after a series of preventable errors.

A NSW Health incident report reveals that Mrs Murray had been transferred to a recovery ward after a routine caesarean when her blood pressure dropped dangerously low. Nurses should have called a medical emergency team but instead left her bleeding. The report admits that the nurses were so inexperienced they did not know how to recognise a postpartum hemorrhage.

It was more than 30 minutes before hospital specialists arrived, and Mrs Murray was taken back to theatre for surgery. She needed a blood transfusion after losing huge amounts of blood, but the incident report concedes that two vital blood-warming machines were faulty. Both "kept turning off for no identifiable reason". Worse still, theatre staff did not know how to use one machine and didn't know the password to operate it, the report said. Soon after, Mrs Murray suffered a cardiac arrest in theatre and doctors decided to transfer her to a metropolitan hospital. She was taken to the intensive care unit at Nepean Hospital. But, by 10.50am on June 25, she was dead.

The report concluded the "inadequate information exchange between treating clinicians contributed to a delay in recognition of the obstetric emergency" and "the rural base hospital medical records did not include an accurate record of blood loss, blood product and fluid replacement".

A new $98 million Bathurst Hospital opened in January, but surgeons suspended routine elective surgery last month, warning that serious design and construction flaws - such as an inadequate emergency alarm system and a pipe that leaked raw sewage into the maternity ward - were putting patients at risk.

Mrs Murray's death has been referred to the Health Care Complaints Commission and the coroner. But Mr Murray, left alone to raise three children, is demanding an apology from NSW Health and has not ruled out legal action. "This isn't a Third World country where a woman who is healthy goes in to have a baby and never walks out of those hospitals to kiss their kids goodnight again," Mr Murray told a news conference at State Parliament with the Opposition yesterday. "My kids have to grow up having no mother. I believe she should still be alive if things had been done properly."

The Opposition health spokeswoman, Jillian Skinner, said it was a tragic example of systemic problems. "How is it that massive blood loss goes unattended in a NSW hospital?" In Parliament, the Health Minister, Reba Meagher, said her sympathies were with Mr Murray. But she said the Opposition could not attack the entire health system because of one tragic case. "I am advised that Mrs Murray suffered acute complications following the birth of her child and was transferred to Nepean Hospital, when her condition continued to deteriorate after extensive treatment," Ms Meagher said. "While any maternal death is tragic, it is also extremely rare." Whenever Mr Murray takes his children to visit their grandparents, he says, they think they are going to visit their mother - "asleep" in the hospital.

Source