Outpatients face long waits for their treatment

MORE hospitals are plunging into financial problems as numbers of outpatients waiting beyond official targets for NHS treatment are at their highest levels for five years, a new report warns today.
Aimee FranklandsAimee Franklands
Aimee Franklands

Analysis by the King’s Fund health think tank shows 3.6 per cent of outpatients waited more than 18 weeks for treatment in November 2013, the highest since October 2008.

In addition, almost one in 10 inpatients waited more than 18 weeks for treatment, the highest since November 2011.

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Today’s study also found that more than one in five hospitals are set to be in deficit by the end of March, according to a survey of NHS trust finance directors.

The report says the NHS will struggle to meet its target of making £20bn of efficiency savings by 2015.

Just under two-thirds of trust finance directors rated the risk of failure to meet the challenge 
as “high or very high”, the study said.

Fewer than half of finance chiefs said they expected to meet their productivity targets for the current financial year.

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The report said: “Looking forward – in time, if not in anticipation – this quarter’s survey found finance directors more depressed than ever about the financial state of their local health and care economies.

“Nearly a third of trust finance directors say they are very pessimistic – the highest proportion since we began monitoring.”

Prof John Appleby, chief economist at The King’s Fund, said: “Despite warnings about a potential crisis in A&E, most hospitals are coping with winter pressures so far – a tribute to the hard work of staff in A&E departments.

“However, the growing number of hospitals set to overspend their budgets shows that for some, it is no longer possible both to maintain the quality of services and balance their books.”

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Shadow health secretary Andy Burnham said: “David Cameron promised not to cut the NHS
but that is precisely what is happening across the country as NHS organisations struggle to balance the books. As financial panic spreads, services are going downhill.

“This growing financial crisis in the NHS has its roots in David Cameron’s disastrous decision to break his promise of ‘no top-down re-organisation’.

“It created confusion when the NHS needed stability and distracted attention from the financial challenge at the worst possible time.”

NHS medical director Prof Sir Bruce Keogh yesterday told MPs on the Commons health committee that private health firms were being sounded out about their capability to carry out planned NHS surgery when emergency pressures on hospitals became excessive.

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“One of the issues under consideration is when the going gets rough in winter, often one of the impacts is on elective care so waiting lists start to drift out, so could elective care be shifted more into the private sector?” he said.

He said the NHS was “better prepared”...“than any winter that I’ve been involved in before but I think we’d be foolish to be complacent because there are always things that crop up like outbreaks of flu or norovirus”.

A spokesman for NHS England said meetings had been held so it was known where capacity existed in the private sector, including for taking on some planned (elective) procedures.

Talks had also been held to gauge capacity in care homes due to difficulties sometimes faced by hospitals in discharging patients.

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He said: “If hospitals needed help to ensure they met patients’ entitlements under the NHS Constitution, they would need to know where capacity existed in the private sector to take on some elective procedures. This is all part of sensible resilience and planning.”

The spokesman said there was “no suggestion” of private health firms providing urgent care such as in A&E.