Could you reduce your waiting time for non-emergency NHS treatment?
A recent study has found that a large percentage of citizens are unaware that they are not limited to their local NHS facility for treatment. Waiting lists for different treatments vary dramatically from region to region, and with a simple search on Health Compare you can not only check where the facilities are with shorter waiting times, but also their care quality ratings, percentage of operations being cancelled and more.
It is important to find the best, most convenient care for you, whether it be your local NHS hospital, another hospital throughout the country, or even through a private provider.
"You can be referred to one hospital and wait two weeks, another one and it's over two years!"
-Dr Arun Ghosh
Our very own director Dr Arun Ghosh has appeared in an ITV report on the topic, and discussed it in further detail with Jeremy Kyle of TalkTV.
Watch both videos below:
Transcript
Jeremy Kyle (JK)
Arun Ghosh (AG)
JK
Next guest, good friend of mine, responding to the news that research findings today published in new attitudes to hospital waiting times and treatment in England, this report reveals a public willingness to travel further for faster access to NHS hospital treatment amid a lack of awareness of the legal right to use a hospital in significant variation in waiting times across the country. Basically, you can go where you want. Arun Ghosh, looking the part. Welcome to TalkTV and Drive. How are you, son?
AG
I’m very well. How are you?
JK
I’m good, thank you. A patient’s right to choose under the NHS Constitution. What does that mean?
AG
The NHS was set up as a national health service, not a regional one, which meant you have the choice of all the hospitals throughout England, all 700 hospitals including private providers that provide NHS treatment where you can go and get your treatment done. And what’s happening is we are seeing a huge amount, 6 million people, on waiting lists of which 2 million are waiting over 18 weeks. This is totally unacceptable. But we see a massive variation. So let’s look at ophthalmology. You could be referred to one hospital and be seen within two weeks. Another one, it’s over two years. Now that’s just not acceptable because of the area you live in. But what patients don’t know, and this is what the whole point of this campaign is, you can actually access now that information. You can go onto a website, healthcompare.co.uk, it’s completely independent and you can see in your area where is my closest waiting time, where is my best rated hospital, what is the percentage of patients that are being cancelled off the waiting list. You can actually have that choice and you can demand that choice to say I want to be seen at this hospital because I can be seen far quicker than what I’m currently doing.
JK
Without wanting to appear cynical, two things. The first thing is everybody will jump up and down and say in that area, where they have a hospital that has short waiting lists, that’s now going to be infiltrated by what I’m going to call NHS immigrants, you know what I’m trying to say, migrants, whatever, so that area that was okay is going to be a problem, so that’s going to cause localised anger. But I’m being genuine when I say this, if you look at the major news story, apart from what’s going on in the Ukraine today, about the cost of petrol, how the hell, Arun, can anybody afford to drive anywhere when it's £100 to fill your car up? Genuine comment.
AG
Sure and, listen, it’s a really good point because when we did the survey we looked at people from low income households, incomes that are earning between 10,000 and 30,000 and saying would you be willing to travel and, actually, they would because you have to think of the cost it costs you to stay off sick. It costs you time to go to your GP to get painkillers. It costs to take time off work. It costs you not being able to look after loved ones. There is a far bigger cost to being left on a waiting list for six months, if not for years which is what’s happening now, than actually going to be seen, get sorted and we need to even out this health discrepancy. It shouldn’t be right that you can travel less than 20 miles or 25 miles and be seen in half the time.
JK
It’s interesting as well, and I’ll probably get slagged a little bit for this, I know that there’s a lot of terrible things going on in the world, a lot of people will say I don’t want that hospital, I don’t want to be referred to that hospital, they’ll also complain if they have to travel far to another one where it’s different or quicker service. So the consumer, in effect, the patients do have to make an effort themselves. This system, you think it’s a fair system, a good system, you think it utilises the better areas? Would it not be better, unless I’m missing the point, to concentrate on providing better service in the areas that aren’t providing better service?
AG
I was listening to your show yesterday and there was a lady on and she was talking about how in the olden days you’d just turn up at these appointments and you’d wait there and you’d get seen. But what we’ve got is unfortunately a health service which in certain areas is at breaking point but in other areas is doing outstandingly well.
JK
Yeah.
AG
And we can go back through to the politics about why certain areas were given more funding, university hospitals were given far more funding than small, district general hospitals, if you were living in rural areas, why doctors were moving into areas where they want to live and that meant, again, rural areas were seen to be left outnumbered and certainly understaffed. But, actually, what we have here is we have to make a change in the mountain of people that are waiting. Literally, the millions of people that are waiting and this unacceptable and what we need to do is say, right, if we can’t give people that information about where they would like to go and if patients are willing and this study is showing that patients now are willing to travel, and I certainly, Jeremy, if I had my mum waiting for six months for a hip operation and I could go 20 miles down the road and get it done in a month, I would drive her and I would go for that and I think a lot of us would do that.
JK
Completely agree. I’ll pick you up on yesterday, though. I know you’re a private GP. We’re good friends. It was Dr Sonia Adesara. She was reacting to the news that the BMA were saying doctors shouldn’t work more than three full days a week and they’re going to go on strike if they have to work weekends or evening appointments which, against what you’ve just said, with a cost of living crisis, turns my viewers and listeners nuts, mate, because they can’t get a goddam appointment if they’re not lucky enough to be able to afford to go private. I’d love your take on that briefly.
AG
Listen, I absolutely agree with you for once, Jeremy. We’re not going to fight here. I think I’m an old farty GP. I’ve been around for 20-odd years and certainly when I used to do on calls in hospital, we were doing week long on calls and it is a vocation. You go and your patients don’t need you to do any more. That’s one of the reasons why I did go private was because I could give that level of care. Do not get me wrong, I totally understand they are inundated. I was looking at the local GP numbers in my area and they dropped by 25 this month. That’s how many GPs are leaving. So there is less and less doctors available which means the workload is getting higher.
JK
But are they leaving because they can’t do the job or because they make more money privately? And the argument and I haven’t got long is if they’re being trained by the taxpayer, maybe they should be forced to stay. I don’t know, mate. But I do know this, for people to not be able to get an appointment, I think this motive today, this report today is great. It’s basically saying to people, look, we accept the NHS is great in some areas and not so good in others and maybe you’re going to have to use this website and use a bit of your braincells and get out there and don’t moan about it. I am all for that. I just think at the moment it’s not a great look, is it, the health service for people?
AG
I think the thing is that patients have choice and what they whole point of this is that you can go onto healthcompare.co.uk, you can have a look now like you would your car insurance, like you would your holidays, and rather than just trust the travel agent that you used to go to for that holiday or just the GP, you can make an informed decision about where you can get your healthcare done. And that is not only, as I said, NHS care but there are private hospitals providing NHS treatment. Why aren’t we utilising them? There are hospitals in this country. There are doctors in this country. We’re not using them to the best of our ability.
JK
Completely with you, mate. Always a pleasure. Really appreciate you being on. Dr Arun Ghosh responding to that report today saying there is a website, we’ll put the details on the screen, you can go to that website and you can say I don’t want to go to that local hospital where they’re going to tell me to wait two months, I’m going to go down the road because I can get an appointment in two weeks. That apparently is our right which is a good thing because guess who pays for the NHS? The taxpayer. TalkTV Drive.