Cat welcomes Government plan to clear local backlog of 94,564 patients waiting more than 18 weeks for NHS treatment
Patients in Lancaster and Wyre will be able to access more appointments closer to home and get the treatment they need faster under Labour’s plan to tackle hospital backlogs.
- Hundreds of thousands more appointments in the North West to be created through plans to get people the treatment they need quicker
- Patients in Lancaster and Wyre to feel the impact of greater patient choice over follow up care as part of a drive to open-up one million appointments, alongside better use of tech and other action to save another million missed appointments
- Reforms mark next step in delivering government’s Plan for Change to deliver for working people
Patients in Lancaster and Wyre will be able to access more appointments closer to home and get the treatment they need faster under a new plan to tackle hospital backlogs set out by the Prime Minister this week.
In the North West there are 1,063,560 on waiting lists at huge cost to their health.Tackling the 7.5million strong waiting list inherited by the government so that the NHS once again meets the 18 week standard for planned treatment is a key milestone in the government’s Plan for Change. Restoring this standard will mean patients in Lancaster and Wyre no longer have to have their lives put on hold.
Currently, too many patients face long waits for appointments or surgeries and may be referred to hospitals they don’t choose at inconvenient times, while appointments and staff time are being lost to inefficiencies or inconsistencies in care.
The Labour Government’s Elective Reform Plan, published this week by NHS England, sets out a whole system approach to hitting the 18-week referral to treatment target by the end of this Parliament. This includes opening Community Diagnostic Centres on evenings and weekends so that many more people will be able to access tests and checks while going about their daily lives, and the NHS will also increase the number of surgical hubs, which help protect planned care from the impact of seasonal and other pressures.
The plan will drive forward progress on the government’s first steps commitment to deliver 2 million extra appointments in its first year, equivalent to 40,000 every week. The reforms will put patients first, harness technology to support staff and help the NHS to do things more efficiently.
Under the plan, 65% of patients will be treated within 18 weeks by the end of next year. Based on the size of the current waiting list, that would mean a fall of more than 450k people waiting more than 18 weeks for treatment.