Waiting Lists in Wales ‘a Result of Devolution’

By Tomos Livingstone

LONGER waiting times for a Welsh patients are a “consequence of devolution”, the English health minister who attacked the Assembly Government over free parking said yesterday.

Ben Bradshaw, number two to Alan Johnson at the Department for Health, sparked a row inMarch when he criticised the decision to allow Welsh patients to park for free.

It was a rare public attack by a Westminster minister on a devolved policy decision, and highlighted tensions between the two administrations over NHS priorities.

Yesterday Mr Bradshaw told MPs on the Welsh Affairs Select Committee that he was “happy to defend” the English policy approach to concentrate on cutting waiting times. He said only 109 English patients were waiting more than 13 weeks for outpatient treatment, compared with 25,042 patients in Wales.

Health policy has diverged sharply in Wales since devolution, leading some MPs and observers to question whether the NHS is any longer a genuinely national service. While waiting times have fallen more quickly in England, the Assembly Government has concentrated on public health messages, and has provided free prescriptions and free hospital parking – prompting some unease in Westminster.

Asked about the differences, Mr Bradshaw said: “This is a consequence of devolution. In England we have taken a conscious decision to make driving down waiting lists our number one priority.”Headded: “I don’t think we should lose sight of the fact that waits in Wales have gone down substantially.”

During his one-hour grilling by MPs Mr Bradshaw was careful not to repeat the criticisms he made three months ago of the free parking policy. He said: “These are matters that are entirely for the Welsh Assembly Government.

“I will say again, as far as England is concerned, given that 88% of all prescriptions are free anyway, given that there are concessions in place for people who need to use hospital car parks regularly – if you have a long-term condition – as far as England is concerned, we have made a different decision and that’s that the funding should be prioritised to minimise waiting.

“That’s a decision I’m happy to stand by and defend.”

Part of the reason for the different waiting times on either side of the border were down to the different targets set by ministers, he suggested, saying it was “inevitable” that different targets led to different outcomes.

He said: “In terms of outcomes, where we can be quite clear – and these are published data – in England in terms of actual waits for outpatients, for example, 109 outpatients waited more than 13 weeks for their first a compared with 25, 042 in Wales.

“In-patient maximum waits are broadly similar, at the moment.

Diagnostic waits: in England the latest figures are six weeks, in Wales 14 weeks.

“In A&E we have the 98% for allA&Epatients to beseenwithin four hours, Wales has a 95% target for major A&Es. England is on 97.9%, I believe the latest figure for Wales is 93.8%. It’s difficult to always make accurate comparisons but I think there are comparisons that can be made.”

There should be greater efforts to produce meaningful like-for- like statistics so people could make comparisons, Mr Bradshaw said.

Discussions were ongoing between officials and Ministers for a formal protocol on the treatment of patients who travelled across the Wales-England border, Mr Bradshaw said. Adraft agreement should be ready by next month, he said.

Talks were also taking place with Welsh Health Minister Edwina Hart on ending a funding anomaly created by the differing ways Welsh and English hospitals were paid for treating patients.

Mrs Hart had put the gap at pounds 16m, Mr Bradshaw said, and although he said he felt that figure was “not robust” he was confident a deal would be reached.

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