LABOUR investigations that revealed a shocking 154 patients died while on a waiting list to receive treatment from Warrington and Halton Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust last year, “could be misleading” according to hospital bosses.
Of the 154 who passed away, 48 had been waiting longer than the 18 weeks NHS treatment target, according to a Freedom of Information (FOI) disclosure.
But hospital bosses say the figures provided in response to the freedom of information request are for inpatients awaiting planned care and are not indicative of whether the wait for treatment was a contributing factor or cause of death.
As a result, the data could be interpreted in a number of different ways and therefore the analysis “could be misleading.”
Meanwhile, the latest statistics show a record 7.7 million patients currently waiting for NHS treatment across England, with 32,021 people on the waiting list at Warrington and Halton.
Weaver Vale Labour MP Mike Amesbury, who represents Halton and Runcorn, said: “I feel sad for the patients who passed away while waiting for treatment that never arrived, as well as their devastated loved ones.
“We don’t know individual circumstances but across the country, waiting lists are going in the wrong direction, with the concern many of these deaths could have been prevented if the NHS was properly resourced.”
Mr Amesbury, whose party received 35 FOI responses after emailing all 138 hospital trusts, added: “I’m certainly not pointing the finger of blame at local NHS leaders, doctors and nurses who do a sterling job in a very challenging environment. This is the result of 13 years of underfunding.
“Rishi Sunak promised to cut NHS waiting lists, but there are 600,000 more patients waiting for NHS care today than when he became Prime Minister.”
Labour estimates around 121,000 people died while still waiting for NHS care in England last year, double the number who died on waiting lists in 2017/18 when the figure stood at around 60,000.
Shadow health secretary Wes Streeting said: “The basic promise of the NHS – that it will be there for us when we need it – has been broken. The longer the Conservatives are in office, the longer patients will wait.
“Only Labour can rescue the NHS from this crisis and restore it to good health. We will train the staff needed to treat patients on time again, and reform the service to make it fit for the future.”
Meanwhile, Warrington North MP Charlotte Nichols added:”The last Labour government reduced waiting times from 18 months to 18 weeks. These sad statistics show how the Conservatives have run down the NHS since then, with tragic consequences for too many families in Warrington. The sooner we have a Labour government to start to rebuild our public services the better.”
In response to the data a spokesperson for Warrington and Halton Teaching Hospitals said: “First and foremost, we would like to apologise to our patients currently on waiting lists for treatment. Our teams are working incredibly hard to reduce waiting times, prioritising patients based on their clinical need. We advise any patients who are concerned about changes in their health to contact their GP or clinician.
“The figures provided in response to a freedom of information request are for inpatients awaiting planned care and are not indicative of whether the wait for treatment was a contributing factor or cause of death. The data could be interpreted in a number of different ways and therefore this analysis could be misleading.”
An NHS spokesperson added: “This analysis, based on figures from just a quarter of hospital trusts, does not demonstrate a link between waits for elective treatment and deaths, and it would be misleading to suggest it does given the data does not include the cause of death, or any further details on the person’s age and medical conditions.
“The vast majority of the waiting list – about four in five patients – is seen and treated in an outpatient setting, rather than requiring inpatient admission, with latest data showing more than one million patients were treated within 18 weeks in June.
“Our hardworking staff have made significant progress bringing down long waits for elective care, and nationally the NHS is working with the most challenged trusts to ensure patients continue to see reductions in waiting times right across the country, with patients who have been waiting the longest and those with the highest clinical need prioritised.”
1 Comment
Regarding the very long NHS waiting lists. The Government has asked many NHS Trust”s to close these waiting lists. So Consultants have been instructed to only add the most urgent cases to the list. Then patients who require an non urgent operations for example may drop from the main Trust’s waiting lists.These are patients who are still seen and monitored but are not likely to be recieve an operation within 5 years.
It is more of the Conservatives not wanting these true 5 year plus waiting lists know to the electorate.
I can recall when Tony Blair and the Labour Government entered power. At tbat time the local waiting lists in Cheshire and Merseyside was huge then. Tony Blair while he does have a bad name over taking the UK to war. He did bring into the UK overseas healthcare companies to help bring down these long waitng lists working with the NHS trusts.
One observation i did make over the following five years, it did appear that a majority of the patients waiting for these operations were over the age of 60.
It is true that many of the patients over 70 years were the one most likely to have died they could be treated.
It was heart breaking to see so many old pensioners waiting so long ( 4 years) for example for such a quick and simple operation on their eyes.
Netcare from South Africa worked from 7am to 7pm x 7 days x 5 years to deal with the waiting list backlog. Netcare did carry out 3 operations per hour so that was around 35/36 patients per day.
Interhealth Canada also carried out hip replacements for 5 years at the Cheshire & Merseyside Tatment Centre at Halton General Hospital. They had a five year contract .
One good reason why Halton General Hospital was used by all of these overseas contractor was the location. Halton General Hospital in the Centre Point of Cheshire and Merseyside Regional Map.
This was an important factor for travelling patientd from Southport in North down to Crewe and Birkenhead down to Chester.
So while nobody did have many good memories of Tony Blair the amount of Government money and 5 years work went into reducing the national waiting lists back down to 6 weeks.
This was the work of Tony Blair that did go unnoticed by the public because of his lies over the War. I believe that it was President Bush who forced the PM into helping the USA in the War.