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January 5th, 2012 
FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda - Currently no penalties for NHS Trusts who don’t bother to treat patients once 18-week waiting list deadline breached
By
Claire Bates
Last updated at 3:05 AM on 5th January 2012
Ministers have been accused of delaying new ‘waiting-time’ fines for hospitals.
NHS trusts were expected to be given penalties of up to £1million starting in April if they failed to reduce the numbers of patients waiting more than 18 weeks for common operations and treatment.
The measures were announced by Health Secretary Andrew Lansley in November, when he promised to ‘crack down’ on trusts who kept patients ‘languishing’ on lists.
The waiting continues: Thousands of patients have waited for more than a year for treatment (file photo)
Figures show that as many as 20,000
patients have been waiting longer than a year for a range of operations
including hip and knee replacements, treatment for hernias or surgery to
remove kidney stones.
But the Department of Health says it will not bring in the fines until
next year at the earliest, according to Health Service Journal.
Patients who have waited longer than 18 weeks for treatment are referred
to as ‘forgotten waiters’, because hospitals have a target of ensuring
90 per cent of patients are treated within this time period. But there is no
time limit for the remaining 10 per cent.
Labour health spokesman Andy Burnham said: ‘Only six weeks after making
this promise the Health Secretary has further undermined the already
fragile confidence in his ability to run the NHS.’
But ministers insist they never intended the fines to be brought in by
April.
Health Secretary Andrew Lansley had originally said the penalties would be issued from this year against Trusts that failed to tackle hidden waiting lists
Health minister Paul Burstow said: ‘This is seriously misleading –
there has been no delay. Many trusts have a large backlog of patients
so we are giving the NHS time to clear it before we introduce fines.’
NHS managers were told in November they had to reduce the number of long
waiters from this year – and by about 50,000 by April.
Mr Lansley said at the time: ‘Because of Labour’s perverse approach, the NHS actually had an incentive not to treat patients.
‘The new approach we will take from next year will clamp down on this practice.’
However, according to the Department of Health, penalties will now only be introduced ‘once progress has been made on validating the backlog data and the NHS has had time to adjust to working to the new standard.’
Data suggests there are around 250,000 people waiting longer than 18 weeks to be treated and thousands have waited for more than a year.
The new delay, uncovered by the Health Service Journal (HSJ), was condemned by patient groups.
Patients Association chief executive Katherine Murphy said: ‘The Department of Health said they would tackle the issue yet instead of taking action they have just stuck to the same targets which have not helped these forgotten patients.
‘These targets have produced perverse disincentives meaning that once a patient has waited for longer than 18 weeks, there is no push to make sure they receive treatment as soon as possible after that.’
A spokeswoman for the Department of Health said: ‘We want to reduce the number of patients on hidden waiting lists to help ensure everyone gets access to the treatment they need.
‘Work on this has already started and we expect organisations to reduce their backlog and long waits whilst this is ongoing.’
HSJ columnist and waiting list consultant Rob Findlay said delaying the measure ‘fundamentally undermines the Government’s stated intention to reduce the number of patients ‘forgotten’ on English waiting lists.’
According to the HSJ, the 2012-13 operating framework and second quarter report, both released late last year by the Department of Health, planned to introduce a new target to cut the list of long waiters.
But the NHS standard contracts for 2012-13, released on December 23, leave the old system in place.
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I was referred to a consultant by my GP 2 years ago – I’m still waiting to see him!
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Three words———removal of breast implants – Just me, Anywhere Umm I think you’ll find that’s FOUR words! Did they not teach you to count at junior school?
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U-turn Dave strikes again !……… BIg fanfare launch then quietly dropped when the public’s not looking, Why ? because the Nhs ISN’T safe in his hands. Simples.
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My 18 weeks after being seen by a consultant and offered surgery for a prostate problem was up last week and I was classified as URGENT by the consultant. All I have received about 3 weeks ago was a letter from the hospital asking when I would NOT be available! The hidden stress here is that you cannot plan your life, book a holiday etc because no sooner will you have done so and gone on holiday etc than the appointment letter arrives for the operation in 10 days time but you have gone on holiday so you miss the appointment and have to start all over again!
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blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, ……………….whenever you hear the words,, pledge, promise, its so much waffle.
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blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, ……………….whenever you hear the words,, pledge, promise, its so much waffle.
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18 weeks to receive treatment, it can take that long to get an appointment with your GP.
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Three words———removal of breast implants!
You can bet this is being done so that clearing up the mess made by private health care companies at taxpayers expense won’t impact on these artificial targets. There is no other reason Trusts already gather the information about waiting times every month and there are key stages that must be met to meet the 18 week target so you know well before if patients are going to breach this target. There is no need to take 2 years ” validating the data” trusts have been doing the data collection for years and could easily provide relevant data on the 18 week wait right now.
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Not again! Not another boken pledge! Cameron has all the business instinct of a Lemming and unless he is very careful he will enjoy his own personal cliff face coming to an election relatively soon.
He is held aloft by the occasional gust of wind, but time is running out. There are other, more able Conservatives – surely they must be considering speaking out or else contemplating their navels in the wilderness which will otherwise be theirs along with memories of the now defunct Liberals.
I is not just the Tories who are liars though, virtually ALL politicians would steal the pennies from the eyes of their Grandmothers corpse given half a chance (remember expenses?).
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Yet another “Pledge, Crackdown, Promise” shelved. They are all too busy filling in the exes claims to get anything done.
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