NHS waiting times for elective care in England
Author: Great Britain: National Audit Office
Publisher: Stationery Office
Published: 2014-01-23
Total Pages: 41
ISBN-13: 9780102987461
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →In this report the National Audit Office highlights the increasing challenge to the NHS of sustaining the 18-week waiting time standard for elective care and the importance for trusts of having reliable performance information and shared good practice. Value for money is being undermined by the problems with the completeness, consistency and accuracy of patient waiting time data; and by inconsistencies in the way that patient referrals to hospitals are managed. Published waiting time figures need to be treated with a degree of caution. The NAO has identified inconsistencies in the way trusts measure waiting time and errors in the waiting time recorded. Although the rules for applying the waiting times standards are set at a national level, the performances of individual trusts are not directly comparable owing to local variations in how and when each patient's waiting time 'clock' is started, paused or stopped. Sample investigations found some errors and misrecording in various trusts. But NHS England does not have sufficient assurance about how trusts are performing. The system of checks that NHS England uses should spot some errors and inconsistencies, as well as discrepancies between trusts' current and past reported performance. It will not, however, detect errors of the kind identified by the National Audit Office without independent validation of trusts' data. The report recommends therefore, that NHS England should seek additional assurance, possibly through a regime of test checking.
