NHS hits key waiting time target

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Ministers say they have achieved their target of driving down waiting times for hospital treatment in England to 18 weeks from GP referral.

Under the target hospitals must guarantee 90% of in-patients and 95% of out-patients are seen within 18 weeks.

Figures show the average wait is now 8.6 weeks - touted by ministers as the shortest ever.

However, the Patients Association said progress on waiting times did not always reflect an improvement in care.

The rhetoric from Whitehall can be very different to the experiences that some patients endure on a daily basis Patients Association

Health Secretary Alan Johnson said rapid progress had been made by the health service.

He said: "Twelve years ago it was not uncommon for patients to have to wait well over 18 months for an operation.

"Achieving the shortest waits since NHS records began is a tremendous achievement for staff and I congratulate them for all their hard work.

"This has improved the lives of millions of people."

However, a Patients Association spokeswoman said meeting targets did not necessarily take account of individual patient's clinical needs.

She said: "The rhetoric from Whitehall can be very different to the experiences that some patients endure on a daily basis.

"Everybody is so busy looking at the targets they don't feel the same pressure to look at individual patient's needs."

Andrew Lansley, the shadow health secretary, said: "It's incredible that the government are selling this as a success story when their targets on waiting times have been so widely discredited.

"Even if patients aren't waiting longer than 18 weeks, average waiting times have gone up under Labour.

"And just last week, the health watchdog published a report exposing the suffering of people in Mid Staffordshire because mangers cared more about ticking boxes to show they had met the four hour A&E target than caring for patients."

Work to be done

A Department of Health spokesman said 10 of the 170 hospital trusts and six of the 152 primary care trusts had not met the required waiting time standard.

But averaged out across the whole service the target had been met.

He said work was under way to ensure "sustained delivery" of the target was achieved "as quickly as possible for their patients".

The progress comes after the government controversially tweaked its target.

In November 2007, ministers announced the 10% and 5% leeway from achieving the 18 week target for all, as they said some people were choosing not to be seen so quickly and for others it was not clinically advisable.

However, at the time critics accused the government of changing the goalposts to meet the target.

The 18-week goal is generally perceived to be the toughest of all the NHS targets Labour has introduced.

Wales and Scotland have their own waiting time targets, but these are not as advanced as the English ones.