§ Lord Brockwayasked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether their attention has been drawn to the report of the Office of Health Economics which states that one in five of those needing hip operations has to wait more than a year, the longest waiting time of any surgical procedure undertaken by the National Health Service, and what they intend to do to remedy this situation.
§ Lord EltonThe report,Hip Replacement and the NHS, published by the Office of Health Economics, makes a constructive and useful contribution on the difficult problem of supply and demand for this operation, and its findings will be carefully considered by the Department of Health and Social Security. The statement to which the noble Lord refers, which has been given some prominence in the press, should be read in the context of the report as a whole, which points out that the relevant figures are three years out of date and suggests that the rate of hip replacement may now be approaching a peak in some regions. The report also concludes that most patients are not subjected to an unacceptable wait for surgery, and that there is little evidence of Britain's supply of hip replacement surgery falling significantly below that of other Western developed countries.
The Government have strongly commended to health authorities the proposals for tackling long waiting times put forward in the report of the working party chaired by Professor Duthie which was published last year. The Office of Health Economics report shows a substantial measure of agreement with the working party's conclusions, in particular on the potential for increasing services within the existing resources.