Helen Salisbury: Massaging the waiting list statistics

Internal guidance from NHS England—as reported by the Health Service Journal1—indicates that patients who decline two dates for elective hospital treatment should be removed from waiting lists. My first reaction to this is that it looks suspiciously like a politically driven attempt to massage statistics and make the backlog of care look slightly less appalling. My second is to wonder what will happen to these patients.Clearly, patients shouldn’t be on waiting lists for procedures they don’t want—and we’d all hope that careful, shared decision making at the time they were put on the list would avoid such errors. Although in some cases their condition may have improved while waiting, there are many other reasons why a patient may choose not to take up the first appointment offered: perhaps their caring responsibilities have changed, or they’re less able to afford absence from work. It’s also possible that the option on offer…
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