Hospitals told not to operate until cancer patients have waited 20 weeks
A NHS surgeon today exposed how cash-strapped hospitals were being barred from operating on cancer patients who had not waited long enough. Wayne Jaffe laid the blame for the appalling state of affairs at the feet of Tony Bliar, with his vision of reduced waiting times and 24-hour surgery. In a withering assessment of the financial management of the health service, Mr Jaffe said that doctors were being restricted in getting waiting lists down by financial limitations and ever-changing targets.
The consultant plastic and reconstructive surgeon, who specialises in skin cancer and breast reconstruction, said he and his colleagues are being prohibited from operating in non-urgent cases unless the patient has been waiting for a minimum of 20 weeks.
This is because the hospital would not get paid – even if the patient and staff were ready for the operation.
Mr Jaffe said the Prime Minister's pledge to have patients waiting no longer than 18 weeks between referral and treatment would be "impossible" unless more money was made available to primary care trusts.
He rubbished the Government's vision of 24-hour surgery, saying that after normal working hours only a skeleton staff was available.
"We are trying to do what the Prime Minister wants us to do but we cannot do it properly because there is no money," he said.
"Waiting lists will only go up if, as is the case, doctors cannot perform operations unless the patient has been waiting for more than 20 weeks. It's absurd."
Mr Jaffe, who works at the University Hospital of North Staffordshire NHS Trust, said the 20-week ruling was a "global issue" within the NHS and not just a problem at UHNS. He claimed that he was unable to fill his evening lists because of the 20-week constraint, and that patients were having to wait longer to be seen than necessary.
He said: "Doctors across the country are talking about the same thing and it's happening everywhere.
"It's not the hospitals – these rules are being put in place by the PCTs to take them over the April 1 threshold, when the new financial year begins and they get their money from the Labour Government.
At the moment they have no money so cannot pay the hospitals. How that tallies with getting maximum waiting times down to seven weeks, which is another target, I do not know.
"The way things stand, waiting lists will grow, not shorten, if operations have to be put back because of a lack of money. It's clearly a ridiculous way of doing business."
His candid remarks come on the same day that radiotherapists reveal how other cancer patients are having to wait months beyond their recommended dates for treatment that can prevent the disease returning.
Channel 4's Dispatches programme, to be shown tonight, found that the waiting gap between operations to remove cancerous growths and radiotherapy treatment is at least three months in Kent, breaching the Royal College of Radiologists' guidelines.
Three patients have seen the disease return during the long gap between their operation and radiotherapy.
The programme found that five UK radiotherapy units have an average wait of 28 days, which means that many patients are waiting longer. In two centres, more than three-quarters of patients were not treated within 28 days.
Mr Jaffe said Government proposals to increase operating hours into the night were "laudable". But he added: "We would need more doctors, more nurses, more staff. More, in fact, of all the people they keep making redundant.
They are getting rid of people yet trying to impose regulations on us that mean we need more people. Nurses are qualifying yet no trusts are employing them because they have no money."
A spokesman for the UHNS trust said that waiting times at the hospital had dropped from 26 weeks to 20 weeks in the last year, and he added that Mr Jaffe's comments only covered routine surgery, not emergency surgery.
From:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/02/26/nops26.xml
Health Direct questioned last week (Feb 20) how Bliar intends to achieve his latest spin NHS target without providing any more money.
Health Direct posted : Barking Bliar's latest drive to cut waiting times for NHS operations
when Tony Bliar stepped up the drive to define his legacy by declaring that he wanted to see "the framework" in place to ensure that by the end of 2008 no one waits more than 18 weeks for an operation after seeing the GP.
The target- originally announced two and a half years ago implies an average wait of eight to nine weeks. How he intends to achieve this breakthrough without providing any extra money was not explained.
James Johnson, chairman of council of the British Medical Association, said there were two "stumbling blocks" to using operating theatres more intensively. One was how to staff them.
But the other was that "many parts of the NHS are broke. If primary care trusts have run out of money, they clearly cannot buy a lot more operations. This and the lack of staff have already prevented extended working from happening in many parts of the NHS."
The consultant plastic and reconstructive surgeon, who specialises in skin cancer and breast reconstruction, said he and his colleagues are being prohibited from operating in non-urgent cases unless the patient has been waiting for a minimum of 20 weeks.
This is because the hospital would not get paid – even if the patient and staff were ready for the operation.
Mr Jaffe said the Prime Minister's pledge to have patients waiting no longer than 18 weeks between referral and treatment would be "impossible" unless more money was made available to primary care trusts.
He rubbished the Government's vision of 24-hour surgery, saying that after normal working hours only a skeleton staff was available.
"We are trying to do what the Prime Minister wants us to do but we cannot do it properly because there is no money," he said.
"Waiting lists will only go up if, as is the case, doctors cannot perform operations unless the patient has been waiting for more than 20 weeks. It's absurd."
Mr Jaffe, who works at the University Hospital of North Staffordshire NHS Trust, said the 20-week ruling was a "global issue" within the NHS and not just a problem at UHNS. He claimed that he was unable to fill his evening lists because of the 20-week constraint, and that patients were having to wait longer to be seen than necessary.
He said: "Doctors across the country are talking about the same thing and it's happening everywhere.
"It's not the hospitals – these rules are being put in place by the PCTs to take them over the April 1 threshold, when the new financial year begins and they get their money from the Labour Government.
At the moment they have no money so cannot pay the hospitals. How that tallies with getting maximum waiting times down to seven weeks, which is another target, I do not know.
"The way things stand, waiting lists will grow, not shorten, if operations have to be put back because of a lack of money. It's clearly a ridiculous way of doing business."
His candid remarks come on the same day that radiotherapists reveal how other cancer patients are having to wait months beyond their recommended dates for treatment that can prevent the disease returning.
Channel 4's Dispatches programme, to be shown tonight, found that the waiting gap between operations to remove cancerous growths and radiotherapy treatment is at least three months in Kent, breaching the Royal College of Radiologists' guidelines.
Three patients have seen the disease return during the long gap between their operation and radiotherapy.
The programme found that five UK radiotherapy units have an average wait of 28 days, which means that many patients are waiting longer. In two centres, more than three-quarters of patients were not treated within 28 days.
Mr Jaffe said Government proposals to increase operating hours into the night were "laudable". But he added: "We would need more doctors, more nurses, more staff. More, in fact, of all the people they keep making redundant.
They are getting rid of people yet trying to impose regulations on us that mean we need more people. Nurses are qualifying yet no trusts are employing them because they have no money."
A spokesman for the UHNS trust said that waiting times at the hospital had dropped from 26 weeks to 20 weeks in the last year, and he added that Mr Jaffe's comments only covered routine surgery, not emergency surgery.
From:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/02/26/nops26.xml
Health Direct questioned last week (Feb 20) how Bliar intends to achieve his latest spin NHS target without providing any more money.
Health Direct posted : Barking Bliar's latest drive to cut waiting times for NHS operations
when Tony Bliar stepped up the drive to define his legacy by declaring that he wanted to see "the framework" in place to ensure that by the end of 2008 no one waits more than 18 weeks for an operation after seeing the GP.
The target- originally announced two and a half years ago implies an average wait of eight to nine weeks. How he intends to achieve this breakthrough without providing any extra money was not explained.
James Johnson, chairman of council of the British Medical Association, said there were two "stumbling blocks" to using operating theatres more intensively. One was how to staff them.
But the other was that "many parts of the NHS are broke. If primary care trusts have run out of money, they clearly cannot buy a lot more operations. This and the lack of staff have already prevented extended working from happening in many parts of the NHS."
Labels: BMA, cancer, health, nhs cutbacks, Tony Bliar, waiting times
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