Re: WAITING LIST BLUES!!

[Guest guest]

Basically it's a supply and demand issue. The NHS waiting time varies from

one part of the country to another i.e Patients in Manchester may have a 12

month wait whereas for Birmingham the wait could be half that. We also have

a situation in the UK with a large population in a small country in that 90%

of this population live within a 20 mile (32 kilometre) of a large hospital.

Patients are intransigent and wish to use the local hospital and are not

prepared to travel to one with lower waiting times. In the US it would be

normal to travel hundreds of miles for an OS but in the UK this would be

almost unheard of.

A number of patients are not willing to take up cancellation appointments.

For some there are very good reasons why they need at least a couple of

weeks notice to take up such a cancellation. However most cancellations are

done at the last minute.

With the NHS critical patients take priority and are taken in immediately.

Arthritic hips are not life threatening and therefore not critical so less

funds are allocated. The current government is striving for a maximum

English waiting list of 6 months. More money is allocated per head of

population in Wales and Scotland who administer their own NHS but the

funding for specific treatments can be lower than England's.

One problem we have in the UK is care of the elderly - they can tie up a bed

because there is no one that could give post operation care at their home.

Some areas of the country have higher levels of older people than others. A

younger person takes up a bed for say 5 days whilst two or three times that

may be needed for older people We used to have convalescent hospitals which

freed up the font line hospital beds but sadly these were got rid of as a

cost cutting exercise

There is also a shortage of NHS doctors and nurses. Most doctors work in

both the private and public sectors so they can only devote a certain number

of hours per week to the NHS - the NHS cannot get extra hours by increasing

overtime which would increase the backlog.

There are loads of other reasons but the ones stated are foremost in my

mind. More funding would help but politically to increase taxation to pay

for it would be unpopular. Personally I prefer to have both private and

state medicine as is the current UK system - It does mean that everyone has

free access to health care.

For my hip resurfacing I travelled 50 miles to Birmingham and had my first

hip operated on 4 months after seeing the OS - the second hip being done 2

months later. I can only speak as I find and having hip resurfacing at no

cost is something I can't complain about.

Rog BHR both hips 2001 Ronan Treacy

RE: WAITING LIST BLUES!!

> Hi, folks. I've been a campaigner for health care reform here in the US.

But I keep reading about these long waiting lists in Canada and the UK.

This is for " elective " surgery? Is hip pain/arthritis not a critical

surgery? How is it, generally, with these waiting lists? And why are the

waiting lists so long? Thanks, Joyce (LHR, 2/04)

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