Waiting times for vital NHS tests rise for thousands of patients

At the end of May, 15,900 people across England were waiting more than six weeks for one of 15 key tests including MRI, CT and heart scans, ultrasound and colonoscopies.

This is a four-fold increase of 12,400 from May last year and a monthly jump of 1,800 on April’s figures.

Of those waiting more than six weeks, 1,806 were waiting more than 13 weeks.

The rise comes in the wake of a warning from NHS managers yesterday that waiting and access times are likely to rise further in coming months as the financial squeeze tightens – the NHS must save £20bn by 2015.

NHS waiting times fell last year to record lows, coinciding with record satisfaction ratings for the health service but have now begun to rise.

In Yorkshire, more than 1,800 patients had waited more than six weeks by the end of May for tests including 225 who had waited more than 13 weeks. The longest waits were in the South East Coast region of the NHS where 4,240 had waited more than six weeks.

In total nearly 60,000 people in Yorkshire were waiting for tests, according to official figures, also published yesterday.

Only a handful of hospitals accounted for the bulk of the waits of more than six weeks in Yorkshire.

More than 700 people were waiting beyond the target time in Leeds, more than 550 at Sheffield’s hospitals and 275 at Barnsley hospital.

In contrast there were no waiters beyond the target time at the Airedale, Harrogate, Rotherham, Chesterfield or Doncaster and Bassetlaw trusts.

The majority of people left waiting for tests were those requiring echo heart scans.

Of all the 584,000 patients waiting in England at the end of May, 97.3 per cent had been waiting less than six weeks, compared with 99.3 per cent in May 2010.

The Unite union claimed the figures reinforced the “toxic pressures” facing the health service due to the coalition Government’s NHS reforms.

Its national officer for health Rachael Maskell said: “The Government’s reform process is and will be paid by patients in waiting longer for vital NHS treatment.”

Shadow Health Secretary John Healey said: “These figures show that long waiting times for tests are up more than four-fold since David Cameron became Prime Minister.

“It is clear that the Government’s reckless reorganisation is beginning to impact on patient care and that we are starting to see the NHS go backwards under the Tories.”

A poll of 11,000 over 50s published yesterday by Saga said two in five feared the NHS was likely to be worse or much worse within five years.

Some 28 per cent said it had already worsened.

Roger Ramsden, chief executive of Saga Services, said: “The over 50s are heavy users of NHS services so their experience counts and their judgement is that not only has the NHS got worse over the last year, they expect the NHS to deteriorate further within five years.”

Latest figures show the number of hospitals failing to hit the 18-week limit from referral to treatment has more than doubled in a year.

But many hospitals are doing better than expected, enabling the NHS to meet its pledge of treating 90 per cent of patients within 18 weeks.

A Department of Health spokesman said in May the median waiting time for a diagnostic test was 1.9 weeks compared to 1.8 weeks the year before which demonstrated waiting times had “remained stable”.

“Pressures on the NHS are rising all the time. Diagnostic activity in the three months to May 2011 was 10 per cent higher than in the three months to May 2010,” he added.

“This increase in activity is contributing to improving quality of care but is adding to pressures. This shows why we need to modernise the NHS to protect it for future generations.”