Nhs Waiting Lists

[Guest LB]

Health Minister John Hutton has welcomed figures that show the NHS is continuing to make progress on reducing waiting times for patients.

The waiting list figures for June 2003 show that:

The overall inpatient waiting list has fallen below 1m to 992,600. This is 62,100 less than at the end of June last year and 165,400 less than in March 1997

There were 34 patients waiting over 12 months for inpatient treatment at the end of June, down from 159 at the end of May. This is 20,500 less than at the end of June last year, and 30,200 less than in March 1997

There were 197 patients waiting over 21 weeks for outpatient treatment, down from 328 at the end of May. This is 29,900 less than at the end of June last year. The number of people waiting 13 weeks for outpatient treatment has also fallen - by 2,446 since last month to 158,800, which is 86,700 less than this time last year.

No patients have been waiting for more than the nine month standard for inpatient treatment of coronary heart disease.

"Thanks to the hard work of NHS staff, the inpatient waiting list has now fallen below 1m," said John Hutton. "We expect this downwards trend to continue. The extra resources and reforms we are putting into the NHS are starting to make a real difference to patients through reducing waiting times and shortening the waiting list."

He also said that the health service is on course to ensure that by 2005 no one should have to wait longer than six months for an operation.

So where exactly have the waiting lists fallen or how exactly do they defraud the figures?

[andsome]

Utter rubbish as usual. These figures do not take into account the wait in the first instance to see a consultant. An acquaintance recently was taken ill. The doctor wanted him to have a scan. The hospital could not see him for over three weeks. When he eventually went in he was in bed there for a week before the scan was scheduled, then on the due morning it was cancelled and rescheduled for three days later. It was again cancelled and rescheduled for the following morning. He eventually had the scan and then died the next morning. People are frequently having to wait for three months or more to see a consultant, then having done so they may wait for up to three weeks for the result of an examination. They may then be put on a waiting list to get onto an operation waiting list. This is why the waiting lists are claimed to be down.

A woman in our bowls club had a heart attack in Bournemouth. She was in hospital there, and was told after a few days that she was in urgent need of surgery. She was told that she could return home and go on the waiting list, in which case she may die, or could stay there until an operation could be scheduled. She chose to stay in hospital. After three weeks she was moved to Birmingham to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital. She is still there several weeks down the line, because she is too ill to be sent home where she has no relatives who can look after her. She has now been told that she will possibly have the operation when the surgeon returns from holiday. Does this mean that a city the size of Birmingham can only employ one surgeon capable of doing this surgery? If her name had included the word majesty or highness, she would no doubt have been operated on the next day.

[Sir T Fireball]

Pay peanuts, get monkeys.

GO PRIVATE! <_<

[andsome]

Pay peanuts, get monkeys.

GO PRIVATE!  <_>

Where does the money to go private come from? Together with millions of others I have paid all that was asked of me in all the years that I worked. Most people my age have never earned enough to pay the extortionate fees that the private schemes charge.

[Tankus]

well said ........andsome

[Sir T Fireball]

So whats the alternative?

(sorry the evil look smiley should have come across as more 'sarcastic' )

[Guest LB]

So whats the alternative?

the "alternative" is to get rid of the red tape and middle management, spend the money freed up on more nurses, cut down consultants pay, no one doubts their knowledge and skills but does any job justify that sort of money? Give people an incentive to work for the NHS, employ the right people and give them decent, clean working conditions and save the millions currently spent on agency nurses.

Bring the NHS kicking and screaming into the 21st century, some of the methods used are still in the 19th let alone the 20th.

STOP wasting money treating asylum seekers, if they want to get whatever diseases travelling in the back of a lorry entering the country illegaly, let them suffer.........

Stop paying poncy people to do poncy jobs like redesigning logos, we all know that people think that the NHS is shite so why commission a survey to ask them what they think? They all do it.......

But first the british people need to wake up and smell the bacon, get rid of cheesey blair and get someone who will actually make a difference.

rant over

[andsome]

Lived Backwards

I couldn't agree more. A friend recently retired from being an auxiliary nurse. She spent at least three or four hours per day entering facts and figures onto a computer, instead of being on the ward. A senior surgeon admitted to her that it was all a waste of time, and would not be read by anyone. Where matron used to run a hospital with the assistance of the specialists, the same job is now done by umpteen managers, many of whom are provided with a company car so that they can travel from meeting to meeting. There is a manager for just about every task in a hospital. Lets get back to basics and put the money on the wards.