Hospitals beat Government time targets despite more demand and severe pressure

3:05pm Thursday 3rd May 2001

WYCOMBE and Amersham hospitals beat government waiting list targets last year and got a pat on the back from the NHS.

The number of people waiting for non-urgent operations came in under target and so did the number of people having to wait aHomeowner wakes to find axeman has burgled him long time for their operation.

Targets to reduce patients kept waiting too long for out-patient appointments at the hospitals were also met

Ruth Cornall, director of the NHS executive for the south east, said this showed hard work and commitment and Bryan Long, chairman of the South Buckinghamshire Trust board, said the targets were tough and had been met despite increasing demand and severe pressure.

The number of people on the waiting list came down to 2,312 compared with the year's target of 3,385.

And no patients had to stay on the waiting list more than 15 months compared with the Government's maximum waiting time of 18 months.

Only 49 patients from south Buckinghamshire had to wait more than a year, a drop of ten on the previous year.

According to a Buckinghamshire Health Authority spokesman, waiting list lengths and times are hit by winter pressures, especially the number of old people needing emergency treatment.

This means routine ops have to be put off because emergency patients are taking the beds.

The big take-up of the flu vaccine for older people probably contributed to there being less pressure on beds.

Hitting waiting list targets can bring in extra NHS cash each quarter under the Government's Performance Plan.

But the money depends on health authorities hitting overall targets, rather than individual hospitals.

Buckinghamshire Health Authority qualified for extra cash in the first quarter of the last financial year, but has not done since.

The number of outpatients kept waiting more than the maximum 13 weeks for a hospital appointment after having been referred by their doctors fell by more than a third, down from more than 1,000 to 674. The target for the year was 853 and in the last two years the total has fallen by almost 1,000.

This is despite family doctors referring more and more people to outpatients' departments in hospitals. The figure for south Buckinghamshire was up by 3.6 per cent, in keeping with the national trend. To date there is no explanation for this and it is under investigation.

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