Hi All: >From today"s Guardian ( a UK newspaper highly regarded for accuracy by British contributors to this site) comes the following report about that country's universal health care system:
NHS fail on waiting times David Batty Thursday June 7, 2007 Guardian Unlimited Less than half of NHS patients are receiving hospital treatment within the government's flagship waiting-time target of 18 weeks, new figures revealed today. Only 48% of patients in England are treated within 18 weeks and 12.4% have to wait more than a year for treatment, according to figures published by the Department of Health today. The results cast doubt on whether the government can meet its promise that all patients would be treated within this time by the end of 2008. Patients in the south east of England suffered the longest waits for hospital treatment with only a third seen within the target time. The east of England and London were ranked second and third worst respectively for delays to hospital treatment. In the former only 41% of patients were treated within 18 weeks, and in the latter only 44%. Even in the east Midlands - the best-performing region of the country - only 60% of patients were treated within the target time. The worst performing trust was Swindon primary care trust, where just over a fifth of patients referred for hospital treatment were treated within 18 weeks. Brighton and Hove city primary care trust was the second worst with only 23% of patients treated within the target period. The third worst was Enfield primary care trust, north London, where only 26% were treated on target. Patients referred for trauma and orthopaedic treatments suffered most delays, with only a quarter treated within 18 weeks. Referrals for oral surgery and neurosurgery suffered the next worst delays, with only 37% and 39% of patients treated within the target period. The study of total waiting times - from GP referral to hospital treatment - covered 208,127 patients in England who completed their referral to treatment in March this year. END Is this the quality of health care we what we want for America? I don't think so. Regards, Platt moq_discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
