The 18-week target
The 18-week target is not dead, but it is weakened. And the new performance monitoring regime betrays a lack of understanding of waiting list dynamics.
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Referral to treatment: one lump or three?
When modelling referral-to-treatment waiting times, it is better to model each stage separately (outpatient, diagnostic, inpatient or daycase).
Austerity and waiting times (2)
When finance is tight, commissioners need their wits about them when responding to waiting time pressures. How can you tell when extra resources are genuinely needed, and when they are not?
Austerity and waiting times (1)
How can we meet our waiting time targets in an age of austerity? In part one of a two-part posting, Rob Findlay looks at how hospitals can respond to the pressures.
What are the NHS’s objectives?
What are the high-level objectives of the NHS? Not the vision, not the principles, not the detailed targets, but one or more overall objectives that you can aim at and know whether you succeeded. Rob Findlay rummages through the guidance and comes back empty-handed.
The yin and yang of waiting times
NHS waiting times depend on yin as well as yang: the order in which patients come in, as well as the number of patients waiting. To achieve your waiting time targets, you must control both. The yang, the number waiting, is easily defined. Now we can understand the yin too.
GP commissioning
All GPs are commissioners, whether they think of themselves like that or not. How can they commission better? And what can their PCT do to help?
The annual planning process
Every year the NHS plans its future activity in great detail. And things never turn out that way. Why? And what should change?
Demand management
Who can manage the demand for healthcare? GPs can. But who else?
The NHS after the election
The General Election is upon us, and on Friday this country may have a new Government. What should the next Health Secretary do with the NHS? Rob Findlay takes a look at some of the options.