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SNP to end 'hidden waiting lists' SNP to end 'hidden waiting lists'
(28 minutes later)
Scotland's so-called hidden waiting lists for NHS patients will end in January 2008, Health Secretary Nicola Sturgeon has announced. Controversial "hidden" hospital waiting lists will be scrapped by January 2008, the health secretary has pledged.
She said the new system would ensure all patients received treatment within waiting time guarantees. Nicola Sturgeon said a more flexible system for hospital appointments will be introduced instead.
Availability Status Codes mean patients are not guaranteed treatment within a certain timescale. Ms Sturgeon said patients will no longer lose their maximum waiting time guarantee if their treatment is of low clinical priority or too specialised.
Labour health spokeswoman Margaret Curran said the Scottish Government's move was based on her party's plans. The existing system has faced accusations that it disguises the true extent of waiting lists.
She also disputed claims that ASCs, applied to about 35,000 patients by March 2006, were "hidden", arguing that the figures were regularly published. Ms Sturgeon told MSPs that the waiting time guarantee will not be lost if patients become unavailable for treatment, with the period they are unavailable being taken into account instead.
Waiting guarantee Tattoo removal
In a statement to the Scottish Parliament, Ms Sturgeon said the system was unfair to patients and designed to keep them in the dark. Patients who under the present system could lose their guarantee for cancelling an appointment will instead have two opportunities to rearrange those appointments, but may come off the waiting list and be referred back to their GP.
She added: "It fails to treat patients as partners in their own care with a right to know about their own treatment. And it completely undermines confidence in the NHS." Ms Sturgeon said: "This new SNP government will do in our first year what the last government failed to do in eight years - ensure that hidden waiting lists in our NHS are a thing of the past."
The health secretary said patients would no longer be excluded from waiting time guarantees because their treatment was considered either of low clinical priority or too highly specialised. She went on to describe in detail the new system which will replace "availability status codes" (ASCs) in waiting lists from next year.
She said who become unavailable for treatment will no longer lose their waiting time guarantee and will instead have their period of unavailability taken into account. The codes were introduced in June 2003 and are applied to patients in certain categories, like those who fail to show up for a hospital appointment, who cannot be treated because of medical issues, or whose condition is given a low priority, like tattoo removal.
Patients who currently could lose their waiting time guarantee for cancelling an appointment will instead be given two opportunities to rearrange appointments. Giving them ASCs removes them from official waiting list statistics but the SNP argued in opposition that the effect was to create a huge hidden waiting list.
The best way of thinking about the new approach is that each patient will have a personal waiting time clock Nicola SturgeonHealth secretary
Quarterly figures published in August showed the number of people exempt from waiting list guarantees because they had ASCs was 24,927 at the end of June, a fall of nearly 30% on 12 months previously when it was more than 35,000.
Ms Sturgeon said the codes were "difficult to understand, impossible to explain, and deeply unfair to patients.
She added: "The best way of thinking about the new approach is that each patient will have a personal waiting time clock.
"The clock starts when the GP's referral is received by the hospital or when a decision is made to provide treatment.
"The patient must be seen or treated before the clock shows the maximum waiting time. Where a patient is unavailable for treatment, the clock will stop and be restarted when the period of unavailability ends."