Investment cuts NHS waiting lists to new low

Hospital waiting lists have fallen by more than a third in the past six years to their lowest level for more than a decade, the NHS's chief executive said yesterday.

Hospital waiting lists have fallen by more than a third in the past six years to their lowest level for more than a decade, the NHS's chief executive said yesterday.

Treatment is being offered quicker, with a halving in the number of people waiting more than six months for admission. Ninety-six per cent of patients are seen within four hours in accident and emergency departments and 99 per cent are offered an appointment with a GP within two days.

Sir Nigel Crisp's annual report on the NHS said increased investment had yielded "four years of sustained progress".

The Tories, however, accused the Government of introducing a "target culture" which had led to "fiddled figures" and poor patient care.

And the Liberal Democrats published a survey showing that some patients waited more than a year for diagnostic tests such as MRI scans.

But Sir Nigel insisted that the Government's NHS Plan, launched in July 2000, had yielded faster services, higher patient satisfaction and greater efficiency. He said the NHS was on course to meet its most challenging target - that no patient should wait more than six months for hospital treatment by December 2005 - which was once dismissed by critics as a pipe dream.

"In the summer I said that if the NHS was a business, our share price would be rising," Sir Nigel said. "At the end of 2004, I have not changed my mind because we are hitting our key targets and our surveys show that patient satisfaction levels are very high."

Transferring care out of hospitals - to NHS Direct, walk-in centres and community pharmacists and the home - had transformed the health service, Sir Nigel said. "The NHS is not made up of GPs and hospitals. There has been really significant change here."

But the report shows that the move has not reduced the number of patients treated in hospital. GP referrals are still rising, by 1.7 per cent last year.

Sir Nigel said services took time to change, there was a lot of unmet need and the increase was below the past trend of a 2 per cent annual increase in referrals. "As [community] services get better we might see that increase slow."

The improvements received guarded welcomes from NHS organisations, but there were warnings about the future direction of the NHS. Niall Dickson, chief executive of the King's Fund think-tank, said: "The future for the health service is extremely uncertain. We are embarking on a major experiment using market forces which may extend choice for patients but could create instability."

The NHS Confederation, representing managers, said that ministers should be "cutting waiting times for diagnostics, personalising care for people with long-term conditions, and tackling the underlying causes of ill-health".