NHS change vital to restore confidence

OUR disclosure today that more than 115,000 GP referrals were rejected by Welsh health boards in the first 11 months of 2022 contains a remarkable and worrying statistic.

There are already considerable concerns about NHS Wales waiting times and the existence of so many rejected referrals is not reassuring.

The figures lead to the suspicion that waiting lists would be even longer if at least some of the rejected referrals had been treated as valid.

We agree with those who argue that the current referral regime should be reviewed.

It certainly seems there is a disconnect between the expectation of GPs and the way referrals to specialist outpatient services are handled by the health boards that manage them.

There are bound to be occasions when referrals made by GPs are considered “inappropriate”, sometimes because another treatment route is deemed more in line with a patient’s needs.

But it’s stretching credulity to believe that this will happen on as many as 115,000 occasions in less than a year.

It’s also worrying that this disconnect doesn’t seem to be restricted to just one or two specialist areas.

We discovered there appeared to be no pan-Wales definition of the occasions when rejecting a referral was considered acceptable.

In one instance a health board was unable to provide us with the information we sought – and told us that the figures could only be obtained if we paid more than £150,000 for the privilege.

It’s essential that all NHS Wales bodies conduct themselves with transparency and candour.

Thousands of sick patients and their worried relatives spend a long time waiting to have their medical issues resolved.

The last thing they need is complications arising out of imperfect communications between different strands of the NHS.

GPs, of course, are not employed by health boards – but they are contracted to them.

The Welsh Government suggests better ways of handling the relationship between GPs and hospital consultants are in the pipeline.

We hope they are implemented without delay.

The NHS is held in high esteem in Wales and across the UK as a whole. It’s important that should remain the case and we hope changes can be introduced that restore confidence in the system.