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Three-month freeze on routine surgery
Last updated at 10:55am on 13.02.07Health chiefs have ordered a three-month freeze on booking new patients in for routine operations at London hospitals to tackle the financial crisis, the Evening Standard can reveal.
Hospitals have been told not to admit patients for surgery until the next financial year, which starts in April, if they were put on the waiting list after 2 January. Some consultants are now doing administrative work and teaching instead of performing operations.
Out-patient appointments to see a specialist have also been delayed in a move by health bosses to balance their books.
A letter leaked to the Standard reveals how primary care trusts across the capital, which buy services for patients from hospitals, have agreed a " protocol" on delaying routine, elective operations at St Mary's Hospital in Paddington.
Health chiefs have asked for similar arrangements at the Central Middlesex Hospital and Northwick Park Hospital in north-west London.
The revelations sparked anger among MPs and health campaigners. John Lister, of London Health Emergency, said: "This is scandalous. They always say that patient care won't be affected. Here we have got it in black and white that it is. This is not an acceptable way to treat patients." Shadow health secretary Andrew Lansley added: "These patients are being deliberately obstructed in accessing the treatment they need, despite hospitals having paid for the consultants and other NHS staff who can treat them.
"There is no point in paying these NHS staff to do nothing in the last quarter of the financial year solely because the Health Secretary, Patricia Hewitt, has put her own job on the line by promising to get the NHS back into the black by April. Even the Department of Health must realise what a false economy this is."
The arrangements to delay operations were revealed in the letter from Paul Jenkins, director of service development at Westminster Primary Care Trust, to Andrew Holden, director-of finance at St Mary's Hospital NHS Trust, dated 22 December last year.
He wrote: "We request the following protocol be implemented for all London PCTs.
"For all routine elective cases placed on waiting lists after 2/1/07, the TCI (to come in) date must be post 1/4/07, and for all routine outpatient cases referred after 31/1/07, the appointment date must be post 1/4/07.
"Implementation of this protocol will assist PCTs in managing in-year financial pressure whilst at the same time ensuring there are no waiting list breaches either for St Mary's or for PCTs." However, John Appleby, chief economist at independent think tank the King's Fund, said delaying treatment now could make it harder for trusts to meet the 2008 target of a maximum 18-week wait from referral by a GP to treatment. According to the latest analysis by the Tories the NHS in London is predicting a deficit of £135 million by the end of the financial year.
Health Minister Caroline Flint insisted the protocol would not delay surgery for people who needed it urgently.
She said: "Nobody who needs urgent or emergency treatment is affected. Where minimum waits do exist, they only apply to non-urgent types of treatment and even in these cases, nobody now waits longer than six months, with the average wait being just under two months."
Meanwhile, medical suppliers claimed today the NHS is delaying paying their bills.
Reader views (15)
Isn't it quite amazing that there such blinkered Labour apparatchiks around that keep blowing the anti-Tory trumpet on the NHS when faced daily with mass corruption, sleaze and plain incompetence from this tired and useless New Labour regime? Chuck Labour out and sack the useless NHS managers, let Matrons run the hospitals again!
- James, London
Waiting list times may be down on previous years but no-one has considered that this is due largely to the increasing numbers of us that have private healthcare. Most people I know have private healthcare and each and every one of us is lightening the load on the NHS. In truth waiting times are up on the Tory years and funding is down and the cash crisis must have some bearing on the numbers of immigrants, legal or otherwise, that are piling on the pressure to our overstreached health service.
- Jane, London
Rachel: I hope Camilla's op is cancelled, maybe she can get onto the mother in law and get her to dissolve parliament.
- Andy, london
If the health secretary wants NHS trusts to balance their books then she should insist on quarterly accounting. It would stop trusts from diving deeply into the red and this financial annual farce in the NHS.
Or is the health secretary just stupid? Oh! Ah... Question answered.
- Gb, London, UK
While this is not acceptable, it is entirely wrong to paint the situation in the NHS as disastrous. The fact is that waiting lists have been cut enormously since Labour was elected. Those being seen in April will still be seen quicker than they would have done under the Tories when 2-year waiting lists were the norm. Everyone knows there has been massive investment in the NHS and that's why detection and treatment rates of major killers are up.
Let's face it, the Tories don't believe in a socialist NHS. As soon as they get their hands on it we would all be forced to go private and you only have to look to America to see the widespread inequality, pain and suffering that exits under a private, 'devil take the hindmost' system.
- Liam Curran, London
Also in the news is the 20 billion pounds wasted on a NHS computer sytem which may or may not be functional in 5 years time.
- Duncan, UK
I think Labour have pulled every trick they have in the book regarding the NHS. The shouldn't be touching it anymore, everytime they have a 'great idea' for it - it just falls apart. If anything they should return it to how it used to be, with matrons on wards and a much more efficient service.
- Tommy, Walthamstow
Was it Tony Blair who said that the NHS "was safe in our hands"?
If this shambles is his idea of what is being safe then God help us!
- Bethany Gleave, Ealing
Labour have had more than enough chances to correct the problems with the NHS but they just seem to keep digging a bigger hole for themselves. We are paying massive taxes as well which we, the public, would like to see spent on the NHS - so where is this money being spent?
- Anna- Maria, E16
How long do you want to give them, Dorothy of Tufnell Park? They've had ten years. 100 years? 1000 years? It'll probably take the latter before they admit to the new centralised computer system not working after £20 billion plus of our money has been wasted on it.
- Paul, London
Our taxes have gone up and up but the returns for our money have gone down and down! Why is this allowed to continue? How can Labour and their ministers be so utterly incompetent! Are we far off the stage where ambulance services are no longer available?
- Tabatha, UK
This proves it, labour have killed the NHS. It is of course all part of the grander scheme, where after having totally destroyed the NHS's ability to provide health care there will be "no other option" but to sell the hospitals off to private companies, Much like privatising the railways.
- Flossy, London
Does this mean that Camilla's op is going to be postponed?
- Rachel, UK
Yes, Labour have made many changes to the NHS and not all of them have worked but we've not really given anything a chance to work before we shout it down. You can't revolutionise something overnight, it takes time for it to have a effect. Plus it can't get any worse than it is just now, can it?
- Dorothy, Tufnell Park
I think the NHS is beyond repairable now. There have been too many errors that have cost money and lives. Labour should not be allowed to implement anymore of their great ideas to the system as they make a mess everytime they touch it.
- Simon, Wandsworth
