(DH) Combined Stats Press Notice - Inpatient And Outpatient Waiting Figures, NHS Cancelled Operations, NHS Critical Care Beds, UK

Main Category: Public Health
Article Date: 02 Mar 2009 - 2:00 PDT

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The following statistics were released today by the Department of Health:
NHS inpatient and outpatient waiting times figures, 31 January 2009
The key points from the latest release are:

Inpatient Waiting times

- The number of patients, for whom English commissioners are responsible, waiting over the 26 weeks standard for inpatient admission at the end of January 2009 was 106 (compared to the total of 576,000).

- The number of patients, for whom English commissioners are responsible, waiting over 13 weeks at the end of January 2009 was 45,500, an increase of 6,000 (15.2%) from December 2008, but a fall of 7,500 (14.2%) from January 2008.

Outpatient Waiting times

- The number of patients, for whom English commissioners are responsible, waiting over the 13 weeks standard for a first outpatient appointment following GP referral at the end of January 2009 was 305 (compared to the total of 810,000). Of these 305, 38 were English residents waiting for appointments in Welsh hospitals.

- The number of patients, for whom English commissioners are responsible, waiting over 8 weeks at the end of January 2009 was 45,600, a decrease of 1,300 (2.8%) from December 2008, but a rise of 15,600 (52.1%) from January 2008.

Full release available as a separate press notice, released at 09:30 27th

February 2009

Additional tables are available here.

NHS cancelled operations, quarter ending 31 December 2008

The key points from the latest release are:

- During the quarter ending 31 December 2008, 16,100 operations were cancelled at the last minute for non-clinical reasons. In the same period in 2007, there were 15,700 cancelled operations.

- Cancelled operations during the quarter represented 1.0% of all elective activity, compared to 1.0% in the same period in 2007.

- Of these cancellations, 665 (4.1%) of patients were not treated within 28 days of a cancellation. In the same period in 2007, 720 (4.6%) of patients were not treated within 28 days.

Full tables are available here.

NHS inpatient and outpatient waiting: elective admission events occurring during the quarter ending 31 December 2008

The key points from the latest release are:

Inpatient Events

- The number of decisions to admit has increased by 154,000 (14.6%) since the equivalent quarter last year. Similarly, the number of admissions from the list has increased by 97,000 (9.8%) since the equivalent quarter last year.

Outpatient Referrals and attendances

- First attendances at consultant outpatient clinics have increased by 294,000 (8.5%) to 3.7 million and total attendances increased by 815,000 (7.5%) to 11.6 million compared to the equivalent quarter of 2007-08.

- Did not attend (DNA) rates have decreased this quarter compared to the equivalent quarter of 2007-08. This quarter, the percentage of patients who did not attend for their first outpatient attendance is 8.8% a fall of 0.3% against the equivalent quarter of 2007-08.

- The number of GP referrals made has increased by 245,000 (10.7%) against the same period last year. The number of other referrals made has increased by 112,000 (8.3%) against Q3 2007-08.

Full tables are available here.

NHS Critical care beds, January 2009 census

The key points from the latest release are:

- The overall number of open and staffed adult critical care beds was 3,637. This represents 139 (4.0%) more beds than at 15 July 2008, and 164 (4.7%) more beds than one year ago.

- 2,666 (73.3%) of the beds were in general critical care with the remaining 971 (26.7%) in specialist critical care units/wards such as cardiothoracic, neurological, liver, spinal injury or burns units.

- 2.030 (55.8%) of the beds were being used for intensive care (level 3) and 1,607 (44.2%) were being used for high dependency (level 2) care on the census day.

Full tables are available here.

Department of Health, UK