The Government has announced its plan to tackle the backlog in planned hospital care caused by Covid-19, and to transform elective care for patient - backed by £36billion of funding
The NHS Delivery Plan For Tackling the COVID-19 Backlog of Elective Care set out the action the Government is taking to support out healh and care systems as they recover from the disrupstion caused by Covid-19, and to deliver necessary reforms that are important to its long term future.
Throughout the pandemic the NHS cared for more than 700,000 Covid-19 patients in hospital across the UK. Despite the huge pressure this put on services, the NHS continued to protect and prioritise urgent treatment. This means that less urgent - though still important - treatment had to be paused. In addition, the NHS estimates that as many as 10 million people did not come forward to seek the help they needed during the pandemic. We are encouraging them to do so now. As a result, the number of people waiting for elective care in England now stands at 6 million and will continue to rise.
Reducing the backlogs that have buit up is an immediate priority. The Government is investing significant funding to support the NHS in England to do this, with £2billion this year and £8billion over the next three years.
The plan commits the NHS to using that funding to deliver 9million extra tests, checks and precedures by 2024/2025, and to increasing elective activity to around 30% more than it was doing even before the pandemic.
In addition:
- By March 2024, 99% of people will wait for less than a year. Within this, no one will wait loger than two years by July 2022, or longer than 66 weeks by March 2024.
- Diagnostoc tests are a key part of many elective care pathways. By March 2025, 95% percent of patients needing a diagnostic test will receive it within 6weeks.
- Regarding cancer care, we will resturn the number of people waiting more than 62 days from an urgeny referral back to pre-pandemic levels by March 2023. By the following year, 75% of patients who are urgently referred by the GP for suspected cancer symptoms will be diagnosed or have cancer ruled out within 28 days.
On going uncertainties in relation to the pandemic and demand for hospital treatment make it challenging to predict hoe quickly we will be able to recover elective services. However, it is clear that the waiting list will increase as people who didn't come forward for treatment during the pandemic seek help over the next three years.
By taking action to reduce waiting times and introducing stretching targets for early diagnosis and caner care, we expect that waiting lists will be falling by March 2024.
The Government has set out a £36bn programme of investment over the next three years, focusing on four key areas of delivery:
Increasing capacity. There are more doctors and nurses working in the NHS than ever before, with a record number of students applying to medical school and to train as nurses.
We will further increase capacity by supporting and growing the workforce, including healthcare support workers and NHS reservists, as well as expanding and separating out elective and diagnostic service capacity. This includes the roll out of at least 100 Community Diagnostic Centres, with 69 already up and running across the country.
The NHS will be consulting with a wide range of local stakeholders on the location of future centres. Where appropriate, we will make use of independent sector capacity to support our efforts in tackling the backlog and delivering value for money.
Prioritising diagnosis and treatment. Clinical prioritisation remains at the heart of decision making. We will establish a new national network for patients who have been waiting a certain length of time, offering alternative locations for treatment with shorter waiting times wherever possible. In many cases this will be alternative NHS provision, supplemented by the independent sector where this means shorter waits for patients.
Transforming the way elective care is provided, by reforming the way we deliver outpatient appointments, making them more flexible for patients and driven by a focus on clinical risk and need. We are also increasing the number of operations and procedures that can be delivered through dedicated and protected surgical hubs.
Providing better information and support to patients, supported by better data to help inform patient decisions, and by making use of the NHS App to better manage appointments, bookings and the sharing of information. We will ensure patients have choice about their treatment at the point of referral, and offer enhanced choice for longwaiting patients through the new national network.
Addressing health disparities and levelling up. There is evidence to suggest that on average, you are almost twice as more likely to experience a wait of over a year for hospital care if you live in a deprived area. I am determined to tackle the disparities that exist in this backlog – just as I want us to tackle disparities of all kinds in this country.
As part of our recovery work, we’re tasking the NHS with analysing waiting list data according to factors such as age, deprivation and ethnicity. This will enable them to develop a better understanding of variations in access to and experience of treatment, and to develop detailed action plans to address any disparities in treatment.
