Hunt commits NHS to maximum 12-month waiting time

4 Aug 14
No NHS patient should have to wait more than a year for treatment, Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt announced today in a new commitment for the health service.

By Richard Johnstone | 4 August 2014

No NHS patient should have to wait more than a year for treatment, Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt announced today in a new commitment for the health service.

In a speech at Royal Surrey County Hospital, Hunt said set out a £250m plan to quicken treatment for those who had been waiting for more than 18 weeks.

He acknowledged that the last Labour government had made progress in cutting waiting lists following the introduction of the 18-week target in 2004.

There were now 3.4 million patients being treated within this timeframe, Hunt said, which showed that delivering timely access had become ‘part of the DNA’ of the NHS.

And the target had been maintained even as NHS funding had been squeezed.

‘Until 2010 NHS funding generally rose faster than the demand for its services,’ he said.

‘But because we have had to deal with the deficit we inherited, since 2010 funding has risen by 0.1% a year – even though demand for NHS services has risen by 3.6% a year, which makes the achievements of the last four years even more astonishing.’

However, Hunt said the waiting time target had also created some ‘unintended consequences’. For example, if commissioners were faced with a choice between treating a patient who had missed the 18-week target or someone who had not yet reached it, the incentive was to treat the person who had not yet missed the target.

As a result, there were 18,500 people who had been waiting for more than a year for treatment when the coalition government came to power in 2010.

‘I am pleased to say that even though none of those people count towards the standard 18-week target, we have nonetheless reduced that number to just 500,’ Hunt said.

‘But today I want to say that even 500 is too many. If a single one of those patients is waiting not out of choice, or for proper clinical reasons, but simply because the NHS has not been able to provide the treatment they need for a whole year, then that is unacceptable.

‘I want the number of people waiting more than a year for their operation to be not in the thousands, not in the hundreds, but as close to zero as possible.’

As part of a renewed focus, NHS England would now review these 500 cases to ensure patients could be treated as soon as possible.

Around £250m would also be provided for NHS England to commission 100,000 additional treatments over the summer for those waiting longer than 18 weeks, including 40,000 additional inpatient admissions.

Although this may have a knock-on effect on the 18-week target, Hunt said it would again be met by the end of the year.

The Foundation Trust Network welcomed the announcement, saying that a 'managed breach' of the 18-week target, to treat those who have been waiting longer, was sensible.

However, chief executive Chris Hopson added that it was essential that the NHS was able to move beyond short-term funding injections.

‘Far better that we move permanently to new and sustainable models of care that are appropriately funded, with all parts of the NHS including GPs, community and ambulance services playing their part in helping to manage the increased demand the NHS faces.’

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