On Wed, 23 Aug 2006 10:39:02 +0100, Simon Brooke
<
[email protected]> wrote:
>> It would only be rationing if there was sufficient capacity for Simon
>> to receive the operation now but the supply was being artificially
>> restricted. I don't know what operation he's waiting for, but I'd be
>> pretty surprised if that were the case.
>
>It sort of is rationing, but I don't see why rationing is a problem. I
>will get the treatment I need, from an appropriately skilled and
>qualified practitioner, in a reasonable time. Furthermore, the surgeon
>said to me when he examined me initially that if I choose to go to admit
>myself as an emergency case, I will be treated the same day. So it is
>rationing, but if I feel it's urgent enough to jump the queue, I get it
>when I want it. It isn't a bad system.
>
What's described in this article is the description of a health care
system that is totally unacceptable in anyones terms. I could never
tolerate this type of treatment. They need to open up the system to
competition from private providers. People are literally dying of
neglect.
Nine month wait for a diagnostic test. Yikes.
NHS scan delays 'put lives at risk'
RICHARD GRAY HEALTH CORRESPONDENT
August 13, 2006
NHS patients in Scotland are being forced to wait up to nine months
for potentially life-saving tests for heart disease, cancer and other
serious illnesses.
Drastic shortages of staff and equipment have led to "unacceptable"
and "ridiculous" delays for diagnostic tests that the NHS classes as
routine.
Figures obtained by Scotland on Sunday show thousands of patients are
waiting - often in fear and pain - for up to 36 weeks to receive brain
scans, heart checks, endoscopy and other procedures.
The delays are all the more serious because, from next year, no
patient should have to wait more than nine weeks for most diagnostic
tests.
The new figures suggest it will be virtually impossible for hospitals
to come anywhere near these targets.
Politicians and patient groups fear the massive waiting times are
allowing many patients' conditions to worsen, and could even be
contributing to avoidable deaths.
In Scotland's biggest health board area, NHS Greater Glasgow and
Clyde, patients needing a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scan must
wait 27 weeks before they can be seen.
Patients in neighbouring Lanarkshire are suffering waits of up to 36
weeks for the same scans. MRI scans are used by doctors to look for
tumours, heart defects, injuries that X-rays can't detect and diseases
in the brain such as epilepsy.
In other areas, patients requiring echocardiograms - used to create
moving pictures of the heart - must wait up to 30 weeks before they
can have the vital test, which looks for signs of disease.
Endoscopy, where a flexible camera is used to search for abnormalities
inside the body, particularly bowel cancers, has waiting times of more
than six months.
The waits are massively longer than the nine-week diagnostic
waiting-time target that all health boards must meet by the end of
next year.
Also in Lanarkshire, computer tomography (CT) scans - typically used
for head injury examination - can take up to 18 weeks to perform,
while echocardiograms - frequently used to diagnose heart problems -
had 30-week delays and endoscopies took up to 26 weeks.
In Fife, patients needing ultrasound scans to identify problems in
their kidneys, bladders and blood vessels must wait an average of 20
weeks before they can be seen.
NHS Grampian has 20-week waits for echocardiograms and 22 weeks for
patients needing endoscopy.
But not all areas are working outside next year's guidelines. Dumfries
and Galloway had the shortest MRI wait - just four weeks - followed by
Highland and Tayside, which both reported MRI-scan waits of eight
weeks.
However, Highland patients are forced to wait up to 20 weeks for
echocardiograms and 21 weeks for endoscopies.
NHS Lothian, Forth Valley and Western Isles failed to provide any
figures for their diagnostic waiting times, but health service
insiders said they were unlikely to be any better than other areas.
Last year the Scottish Executive announced a cash injection of £50m to
cut waiting times in eight key diagnostic tests - including using
private mobile scanners and privately run diagnostic treatment
centres.
But yesterday doctors said staff shortages in some areas of the
country were still severely hampering efforts to diagnose patients as
quickly as possible.
Dr Paul Allen, president of the Scottish Radiologists Society, said
the health service could no longer operate as a weekdays-only
nine-to-five service. "There are unfilled posts around Scotland and
even if they were to be filled the demand is outstripping capacity,"
he said. "Departments are finding they must work later into the night
and at the weekends to meet this."
Health campaigners have warned that the growing burden of poor health
in Scotland will see waiting times continue to soar unless there are
drastic improvements in diagnosis.
Under the current system, if doctors decide patients' illnesses are
not urgent or an emergency, they are classified as routine, meaning
they spend weeks in queues to be seen by specialists.
But the Scottish Executive wants all patients to be seen within nine
weeks of referral for a test by the end of 2007.
Health minister Andy Kerr said: "At present, patients classed by
clinicians as 'routine' can experience lengthy waits for some
diagnostic tests that will determine their treatment.
"That's not good enough, and the new diagnostic standards, which will
improve patient care and shorten waiting times at all parts of the
patient journey, will change that."
Michael Summers, chairman of the Patients' Association, criticised
Scotland's health boards for failing patients. He said: "It is
unacceptable to make patients wait that long.
"Quick diagnosis is vital because the period of uncertainty before
that concerns patients more than anything else, as they are waiting to
see if there is something seriously wrong with them."
Tory health spokeswoman Nanette Milne said: "It is ridiculous that
patients should be waiting for so long to have these basic diagnostic
tests.
"For patients who are forced to wait a long time before a diagnosis,
it creates a tremendous amount of stress and their conditions can grow
worse during that time."
A spokeswoman for NHS Lanarkshire said: "Work is in progress to
improve the waiting times through service redesign and a
Lanarkshire-wide approach to service delivery."
http://news.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=1178402006
Here's the hospital admissions waiting time in England (just in case
you thought it was only in Scotland) provided by the NHS itself.
Again, this is criminal and I don't understand why the British people
accept this.
http://www.performance.doh.gov.uk/waitingtimes/2004/q4/kh07_y00.html
