NHS Freezes Operations to Cut Costs

HEALTH chiefs have ordered a threemonth freeze on booking new patients for routine operations at London hospitals to tackle the financial crisis.

Hospitals have been told not to admit patients for surgery until the next financial year – which starts in April – if they were put on the waiting list after 2 January. Some consultants are now teaching and doing administrative work instead of performing operations.

Outpatient appointments to see a specialist have also been delayed as health bosses try to drive down costs.

A leaked letter reveals how primary care trusts across the capital, which buy services for patients from hospitals, have agreed a “protocol” on delaying routine, elective operations at St Mary’s Hospital in Paddington.

Health chiefs have asked for similar arrangements at the Central Middlesex Hospital and Northwick Park Hospital in northwest London.

The revelations sparked anger among MPs and health campaigners. John Lister, of London Health Emergency, said: “This is scandalous. They always say that patient care won’t be affected.

Here we have got it in black and white that it is. This is not an acceptable way to treat patients.”

Shadow health secretary Andrew Lansley added: “There is no point in paying these NHS staff to do nothing solely because the health secretary has promised to get the NHS back into the black by April. Even the Department of Health must realise what a false economy this is.”

Health Minister Caroline Flint insisted urgent surgeries would not be delayed.

She said: “Where minimum waits do exist, they only apply to non- urgent types of treatment.”

The arrangements to delay operations were revealed in the letter from Paul Jenkins, director of service development at Westminster Primary Care Trust, to Andrew Holden, director of finance at St Mary’s Hospital NHS Trust.

But John Appleby, chief economist at independent think tank the King’s Fund, said delaying treatment now could make it harder for trusts to meet the 2008 target of a maximum 18-week wait from referral by a GP to treatment.

According to Tory research the NHS in London faces a deficit of Pounds 135 million.

(c) 2007 Evening Standard; London (UK). Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.