Caithness.org News Bulletins

Aug 2002 Index

Caithness.org News 2002 Index

Front Page Archives

September 2002

A £4m initiative to speed up treatment for NHS patients waiting for hip and knee surgery was announced today.

Over the next six months around 500 patients who have been waiting for up to one year for a replacement hip or knee will have the opportunity to have their operations carried out in private hospitals around Scotland.

This is the largest investment by the NHS in Scotland in recent years using the private sector.

Health Minister Malcolm Chisholm said:
"In our National Health Service, the interests of patients always come first which is why I am very pleased to make this announcement. We have always said that we will use any resource available to reduce the amount of time people have to wait for their operations.

"Our approach to this whole issue is entirely pragmatic and will remain so. We have secured capacity within the private hospitals over a sustained period so that we can drive down orthopaedic waiting times and keep them down.

"The most important aspect here is that these patients will be able to get the operations they need at the earliest available opportunity and then get back to living their normal lives."

The NHS National Waiting Times Unit (NWTU) has provisionally booked - at a discounted rate - all spare orthopaedic capacity for major hip and knee operations in Scotland's private hospitals.

NHS Boards and Trusts are today being informed by the NWTU of their allocations. They will offer patients who have been waiting longest the opportunity to have their operations carried out as part of this initiative.

The money will be released on the understanding that this measure will clear the backlog of patients waiting for hip and knee replacements - with most of the board areas having no-one waiting more than 9 months for such operations by March 2003.

The NWTU has a specific brief to make best use of spare NHS and private sector capacity to cut waiting times. In the first three months of this year it facilitated an estimated 2,000 operations across various specialties in the private sector on behalf of the NHS. In June 2002 a further £300,000 was allocated to three health boards (Forth Valley, Lothian, and Argyll and Clyde) for treatment of orthopaedic patients in the private sector.

Today's initiative is part of a wider drive to reduce orthopaedic waiting times, which have been identified as a specific problem by an Executive working group. More than 8,000 hip and knee replacement operations are carried out by the NHS in Scotland every year.

The NWTU is also doubling the rate of hip and knee replacements at the NHS National Waiting Times Centre at Clydebank from 28 to 56 a month by the end of 2002 and plans to increase numbers further and carry out up to 960 operations in a full year.

Mr Chisholm said: "Hip and knee replacement operations are complex and expensive procedures and waiting times have been a concern for us as well as for patients. This initiative will make substantial inroads into removing the longest waits and providing a firm foundation to maintain progress in keeping orthopaedic waiting times down in the future."

A total of £3,996,000 has been allocated by the Executive to Trusts and Boards.

Argyll and Clyde £155,000
Ayrshire & Arran £210,000
Dumfries & Galloway £56,000
Fife £140,000
Forth Valley £285,000
Glasgow North £880,000
Glasgow South £560,000
Lanarkshire £320,000
Lothian £670,000
Grampian £200,000
Tayside £280,000
Highland £160,000
Borders £80,000

Boards and trusts will contract with their local or most convenient private hospitals to carry out the operations over the coming months. NHS Highland is using its money to increase surgery within its own hospitals.

The private hospitals involved include Ross Hall and Nuffield in Glasgow, Murrayfield in Edinburgh, Abbey Ayr, Abbey Stirling, and Albyn in Aberdeen. The NHS has effectively booked all spare orthopaedic capacity for major hip and knee operations at discounted rates in these hospitals for the next six months.

The UK has a free health service at point of delivery from birth to death paid for through taxation.   The National Health Service in the UK came into being in 1948 and although it has changed much over the years the comprehensive system is still in place.   Scotland now controls its own part of the Health Service through the new Scottish Parliament and is still funded via the UK tax system with control of the Scottish element devolved to Scotland.