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A massive effort at the end of England's much-extended waiting list initiative saw record admission rates and a record focus on treating long-waiters. The result? It hardly made any difference. Even so, the Government stands a reasonable chance of squeezing out a clean set of waiting times figures in the run-up to the election.
Why sanctions on the perverse admitted and non-admitted targets should be minimised in the NHS Contract, and why CCGs should be allowed more discretion over when to apply them.
NHS England clearly realise that if you punish hospitals for treating their long-waiting patients, they will be less likely to clear their backlogs for you. So why have they not carried that logic, and the Secretary of State’s clear criticism of perverse targets, over into the contract sanctions?
If your baseline's all wrong, and you don't improve your patient scheduling processes, the 'tail' on the waiting list will just grow back again. (First published at Roy Lilley's NHS Managers eNewsletter.)
October was another flop for the English national waiting list initiative, with fewer patients treated than usual and more long-waiters.
You already know that Gooroo Planner works out your weekly beds, theatres and clinics. But what about endoscopy, radiology, and consultant job plans? Or getting Planner to measure your actual theatre performance, instead of doing it yourself? You can even automate it all, so that Gooroo does the hard work while you're asleep.
Over-12-week outpatient waits doubled in Scotland in the quarter to September, according to the latest figures. Not that anyone took a blind bit of notice.
Waiting times recovered surprisingly well in September, especially in Orthopaedics which has received extra attention during the national waiting list initiative. Policy makers must now decide whether to extend the amnesty on perverse targets beyond the end of November, and allow hospitals to continue treating their longest-waiting patients without restriction.
This major upgrade to Gooroo Planner makes make it much easier to create, update and automate comprehensive capacity models, especially around week-by-week planning and theatre capacity.
The Health Foundation and Nuffield Trust kindly invited me to speak at the QualityWatch 2014 conference in London. This is what I said.