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Patients Association Research Shows Worrying Drop in Surgical Procedures
Following calls to our Helpline from patients and healthcare professionals who are concerned about access to elective surgery and increases in waiting times, the Patients Association asked every Trust in England to provide data on the number of surgical procedures conducted in 2009 and 2010 in the following categories-
Hip Replacements
Knee Replacements Bariatric Surgery
Hernia Operations
Tonsillectomies
Adenoid Operations
Gallstone Operations
Hysterectomies
Cataract Operations The responses showed that there was 10757 fewer procedures carried out across these 9 categories in 2010 than in 2009. This included 11% fewer Tonsillectomies, 6% fewer Knee replacements, 3% fewer Hip replacements and 51% fewer Bariatric procedures. The research also showed that patients have to wait longer for some procedures, including Hip replacements, Knee replacements, hysterectomies, Adenoid Operations and Gallstone operations. On average patients are waiting 8 days longer for Hip and Knee replacements, and 6 days longer for Hysterectomies.
Speaking about the findings Katherine Murphy, Chief Executive of the Patients Association said “It is a disgrace that patients are being denied access to surgical procedures that they would have had if they had needed them a year ago. It’s frightening to think that there are people struggling to cope with painful conditions that radically effect their quality of life because a potentially life changing operation is not available to them. With the NHS needing to make £20 billion of savings by 2014, we are worried that this situation is only going to get worse – how many more thousands of patients are going to be denied operations this time next year?
