SNP’S WHITE FLAG ON NHS WAITING TIMES
As thousands face delays in getting vital medical help, ministers set to scrap key treatment targets
MINISTERS were last night accused of raising the white flag over NHS waiting time targets after thousands of patients faced delays to their treatment. In a dramatic move, Health Secretary Shona Robison announced a wholesale reassessment of 19 key targets after almost half were missed.
Those under review include waiting times for cancer patients and the legal requirement that all patients must receive treatment within 12 weeks of it being agreed.
Last night, critics claimed that the review had been forced on the Scottish Government because so many targets had been missed.
Eben Wilson, of Taxpayer’s Alliance Scotland, said: ‘This is a white flag from the Scottish Government. There is no point promising taxpayers that our
government will be constantly improving if they keep slipping up in their own performance indicators – or removing them completely.’
The review could see targets scrapped, tweaked or kept as they are.
Three months ago it emerged the Scottish Government had missed its 62-day treatment target for eight out of ten cancers, with breast and lung cancer patients among the hundreds facing delays.
A legal requirement to treat 100 per cent of patients within three months of agreeing treatment was also breached, with more than 5,700 patients languishing on waiting lists for longer in the first three months of this year.
Targets have also been missed on hospital superbugs, NHS staff sickness and waiting times for children and teenagers’ mental health services.
Last night, Labour health spokesman Anas Sarwar warned the SNP not to attempt to ‘move the goalposts’.
He said: ‘What this review can’t be is a way of the SNP Government avoiding its failures by abolishing targets that they themselves set.’ The Royal College of Nursing has previ- ously called for NHS targets to be overhauled, with Scottish director Theresa Fyffe claiming they ‘skew resources’ and can encourage a view of hospitals as ‘factories’, pushing patients through the system.
The BMA has said the focus on achieving them can overshadow decision-making.
But Miss Robison appears to be protecting the target for emergency patients to get through A&E within four hours, which she said ‘patients have the right to expect’.
The targets the Government has reached are more controversial. While cancer patients were being let down, almost all drug addicts starting their first treatment waited three weeks or less.
A target system requiring doctors to carry out more than 60,000 alcohol ‘interventions’ a year, now applying to those who drink as little as a bottle and a half of wine a week, has seen doctors carrying out 11 of these an hour across Scotland.
An expert group will be set up to lead the review, examining a range of national targets to ensure they continue to help patients and make the best use of NHS resources. The conclusions will be published in 2016-17. Miss Robison said: ‘I believe targets have an important place in our NHS and there are certain standards, such as the four-hour A&E target, which patients have the right to expect.
‘But as we enter a new parliamentary term, the time is now right to take stock of what we are asking from the NHS to ensure our approach is consistent with our focus on improving the outcomes for patients and shifting the delivery of care from hospitals to the community.’
‘The time is now right to take stock’