§ Mr. CohenTo ask the Secretary of State for Health what proposals he has for curtailing the publication of national health service waiting lists; what consideration he has given to the implications of such a proposal for health budget holders wishing to shop around for treatment; and if he will make a statement.
§ Mr. WaldegraveWe have no intention of curtailing the collection and publication of information on waiting lists and times.
We currently collect and publish information on waiting lists and times in districts within which treatment is provided. However, this does not show waiting performance of individual hospitals, and is a poor guide for "shopping around". From April 1991 we are also collecting figures by district residence. Both sets of figures will be collated within my Department for up to two years so as to ensure continuity of data while the new data flows settle down.
Thereafter we propose to collect centrally only the residence-based figures, in order to monitor purchasing health effectiveness in securing early treatment for their residents. Statistics on waiting times at individual hospitals will continue to be held at local level, as now. Arrangements will be made for ensuring the wide availability of hospital level information to purchasing health authorities, GP fund-holders and others before the central collection of provider-based statistics is finally dropped.