Protecting Frontline Services - New Rights for NHS Patients
Issue- New rights on NHS waiting times.
Key points
- NHS patients are to get new legal rights on waiting times from 1 April 2010, Health Secretary Andy Burnham announced today.
- There has been overwhelming support for our proposals to give patients the right to maximum waiting times or for the NHS to find an alternative, and for giving eligible patients aged 40-74 the right to an NHS Health Check every five years. Nearly nine out of ten people who responded to a consultation on new legal rights supported the proposals.
- Giving patients these rights means that power is placed into their hands.
- We also want to press ahead with greater choice around end-of-life care and in the next Parliament we will bring forward proposals on a right for people to choose to die at home if they wish.
- Andy Burnham said:
"Gone are the days of 18-month waiting times. Now average waiting times, from referral to treatment, are around 8 weeks - and rapid access to cancer specialists is saving lives across the country. Now we are going to build on this strong foundation.
"Patients and the public have shown their overwhelming support for locking in the progress that the NHS has made - by turning targets into rights, we are giving patients the power to demand the services they are entitled to."
- The Conservatives would scrap our two-week cancer referral guarantee; the 18-week treatment guarantee; and the four-hour A&E waiting time guarantee. And they would scrap our agreement with doctors, so GPs would be allowed to cut their opening hours. Tory plans could see more than 4 million GP appointments at evenings and weekends lost.
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