§ Mr. Roger KingTo ask the Secretary of State for Health what steps he is taking to reduce hospital waiting lists.
§ Mrs. Virginia BottomleyThe Government's aim is to reduce the time patients have to wait for treatment, because this, rather than the number waiting at any moment, is a key measure of service in the NHS.
In 1986 the Government launched the waiting list initiative to tackle the problem of excessive waiting time. Health authorities and their clinical staff have introduced many improvements both in management—to ensure the most efficient use of resources—and in clinical practice—for example by the greater use of new techniques and day surgery.
The waiting list initiative has been backed by a waiting list fund. The Government have invested £119 million over four years in the waiting list fund to tackle particular problems of long waiting times. By April 1990 the fund will have enabled well over 300,000 additional inpatients and day cases and 200,000 additional outpatients to be treated. Many thousands more will be treated in 1990–91.
In early 1989 a management team, led by Mr. John Yates of Inter Authority Comparisons and Consultancy, went into the 22 districts with the longest waiting times in the country to find out why the lists there were so long and to suggest how they could be shortened. Part of the waiting list fund was earmarked to finance the team's recommendations, where additional resources, and extra treatments, proved necessary.
In the first six months of the team's work the number of patients waiting over a year in the 43 specialties studied reduced by 26 per cent., and further reductions are expected. The team will continue its work in 1990–91 when, backed up by £12 million of the £33 million fund for next 402W year, it will be examining the 100 longest specialty waiting lists with most patients waiting over one year for treatment.