NHS: longest waiters to be offered out-of-area appointments

Clinical teams will now have the ability to offer NHS patients hospital appointments at different locations across the country in an effort to reduce the backlog.

This means that patients who are willing to travel will be able to attend outpatient appointments and receive cancer and diagnostic checks at a wide range of hospitals (including independent sector providers), not just the ones nearest to their home.

Patients who have been waiting the longest will be prioritised for checks and treatment, but clinical teams will also use information such as how far the patient is willing to travel, the severity of their illness and their BMI to determine where and when the appointment could take place.

If more than one provider offers treatment, the options are put to the patient who can then choose based on factors including how far they would have to travel.

‘The benefit of having a national health service’

This scheme is already available to patients requiring hospital admission; however, around four in five patients on the waiting list will not need hospital admission.

Since January, more than 1,700 offers of support have been made, and the expansion of this scheme means thousands more appointments will be made available, allowing patients to be diagnosed and treated much quicker.

NHS chief executive, Amanda Pritchard, said this new scheme shows the “benefits of having a national health service”, in that hospitals across the country can work together in identifying capacity and matching patients to treatment slots.

“Technology is already transforming the way we work in the NHS and we will continue to embrace the latest innovations, like this one, to deliver the best possible for care for patients,” she said.

Plans to eliminate 65 week waits by April 2024

Health and Social Care Secretary Steve Barclay said the NHS is “using all the tools” they have at their disposal to bring down waiting lists, and this new scheme will enable thousands more diagnostic checks and appointments to happen much more quickly.

The scheme is designed to help achieve the next ambition of the NHS Elective Recovery Plan – to eliminate 65 week waits by April 2024.

Already, by increasing the use of the private sector, the number of appointments and procedures taking place per week has grown from 65,000 in 2021 to 90,000 a week now.

Chief executive of the Patients Association, Rachel Power, said this new scheme “will make it even easier” for patients to get the test or treatment they need.