Les Jones

Health Care > UK's Minimum Waiting Time for Healthcare

From the (UK) Telegraph via Will Collier.

The Sunday Telegraph has learned of five further minimum-waiting-time directives. In May, Staffordshire Moorlands PCT, which funds services at two hospitals and is more than £5 million in the red, introduced a 19-week minimum wait for in-patients and 10 weeks for out-patients. A spokesman said: "These were the least worst cuts we could make." In March, Eastbourne Downs PCT, expected to overspend by £7 million this year, ordered a six-month minimum wait for non-urgent operations. Also in March, it was revealed that Medway PCT, with a deficit of £12.4 million, brought in a nine-week wait for out-patient appointments and 20 weeks for non-urgent operations.

Doctors are also resigning. One gynæcologist said that he spent more time doing sudoku puzzles than treating patients because of the measures. Since January, West Hertfordshire NHS Trust, with a deficit of £41 million, has used a 10-week minimum wait for routine GP referrals to hospital. Watford and Three Rivers PCT, £13.2 million in the red, has introduced "demand management": no in-patient or day case is admitted before five months.

There is no evidence that in any of these cases, emergency treatment or cancer care was delayed.

Elsewhere, serious financial tensions are emerging between hospitals and the PCTs paying them.