Waiting Lists

HC Deb 21 May 2002 vol 386 cc312-3W

Dr. Fox

To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many patients were waiting over six months on the in-patient waiting list in each month since January 2001. [56961]

Mr. Hutton

The table shows the total number of patients who have been waiting over six months for elective admission.

Patients waiting for elective admission: Position at the end of the month: health authorities, England
Thousand
Month ending	Patients waiting longer than six months
2001
January	262
February	251
March	243
April	256
May	268
June	264
July	265
August	271
September	274
October	259
November	244
December	256
2002
January	256
February	243
March1	238
1 On 3 May 2002 the Department of Health issued a press release about malpractice in the management of waiting lists at the Royal United Hospitals Bath (reference 2002–0211). This malpractice is now known to have affected the accuracy of the figures for long waiters reported by the trust for end March 2002.

We have sampled records for patients that could have been long waiters and have been able to confirm 25 over 15 month waiters. Based on this we estimate that there would be 180 such cases in total, but allowing for uncertainty the 95 per cent. confidence interval suggests this could be as high as 280.

Source:

Department of Health form QF01

Miss Widdecombe

To ask the Secretary of State for Health whether waiting list data is collected centrally, in England and Wales, for the period between diagnosis and treatment for cancer. [57020]

Yvette Cooper

The NHS Cancer Plan sets out new goals to reduce waiting times for cancer patients including a target of a maximum one month wait from diagnosis to treatment for breast cancer by December 2001. Central monitoring of performance against this standard began on 1 January 2002 and figures will be published quarterly, with the first data due in June 2002. The Cancer Plan also sets the target that by 2005 no one should wait longer than one month from diagnosis to first treatment except for a good clinical reason or through patient choice. We are currently putting in place data collection mechanisms to show performance against this target.