§ Dr. Fox:To ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) what the (a) mean and (b) median waiting times were for (i) initial and (ii) follow-up appointments for physiotherapy care for each primary care trust for the most recent three quarters available; [131031]
(2) what the (a) mean and (b) median waiting times were for (i) initial and (ii) follow-up appointments for (A) chiropody, (B) podiatry and (C) foot clinics for each primary care trust for the most recent three quarters available. [131036]
§ Mr. Hutton:This information is not collected centrally.
§ Peter Bottomley:To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will make it policy that no patient referred to an NHS hospital for a hearing test should wait longer than two months. [131668]
§ Ms Rosie Winterton:While there are no targets for waiting times for audiology services, we are taking action to tackle the causes of longer waits as part of our programme to modernise hearing aid services in England. These are increased demand arising from public awareness of digital hearing aids and a recognised national shortage of audiologists.
The modernisation project team at the Royal National Institute for the Deaf and the action on team from the modernisation agency are working with sites to help them reduce waiting times. We are introducing a new, more streamlined patient process in modernised sites. We are looking at ways to increase the number of trained audiologists in the longer term and are encouraging partnerships between national health service trusts and high street registered hearing aid dispensers to increase capacity and make NHS hearing aids available, free of charge, from an increasing number of convenient locations.
§ Peter Bottomley:To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many patients have waited more than (a) three, (b) six and (c) 12 months for an elective finished in-year admission in (i) 1997–98 and (ii) the latest year for which figures are available. [131669]
§ Mr. Hutton:The number of patients who waited for more than three, six and 12 months are shown in the table.
Total patients waited 1997–98 2001–02 More than 3 months 1,149,122 1,169,469 More than 6 months 608,276 609,684 More than 12 months 185,956 190,158 Notes:
1. Count of finished in-year admission episodes.
2. Elective finished in-year admissions from waiting list and booked cases by time waited, NHS hospitals, England 1997–98 and 2001–02.
3. Admissions are defined as the first period of in-patient care under one consultant within one health care provider. Please note 80W admissions do not represent the number of in-patients, as a person may have more than one admission within the year.
4. A finished consultant episode (FCE) is defined as a period of admitted patient care under one consultant within one health care provider. Please note that the figures do not represent the number of patients, as a person may have more than one episode of care within the year.
5. Grossing—figures have not (yet) been adjusted for shortfalls in data (i.e. the data are ungrossed).
Source:
Hospital Episode Statistics (HES), Department of Health.