Let patients choose hospital with shortest wait, says former health secretary

All patients should be able to choose the hospital with the shortest waiting times, a former health secretary has said.

Alan Milburn, the Labour health secretary under Tony Blair from 1999 to 2003, called for urgent reforms and warned that the NHS was “close to breaking point” and “in the worst state I have ever seen”.

A record 6.7 million people are now on waiting lists, with the numbers waiting in Accident and Emergency departments for at least 12 hours surging by more than a third in a month.

Writing for The Telegraph, Mr Milburn called for urgent reforms to give patients more choice and control while preventing a “tsunami” of chronic diseases fuelled by unhealthy lifestyles.

Under Mr Blair, Labour introduced a policy of “patient choice” which was supposed to mean that all patients waiting for planned care could choose their provider. However, the policy was allowed to wither, with GPs rarely alerting patients to their rights.

In recent months, ministers have promised that those facing the longest waits will be offered treatment further away and offered travel and accommodation costs, but only around 140 patients were booked in for such surgery by June.

Mr Milburn called for the option to be offered to all patients, urging health officials to use the NHS app as a way for people to chose the hospital with the shortest wait. So far, officials have promised to ensure that the app allows patients to check the average waiting time at their local hospital for their condition and compare it with others.

Mr Milburn was the architect of NHS foundation trusts, which attempted to allow hospitals increased freedoms, competing for patients.

He accused the Government of embarking on a “fool’s errand” in trying to reduce the freedoms given to hospitals and urged ministers to do more to give patients “far more choice and greater control”.

“Every NHS patient on a waiting list should be able to choose faster treatment – paid for by the NHS – at those hospitals, public or private, with the shortest wait times,” he said.

Mr Milburn argued that the NHS needed reform of the way it was organised rather than changes to its funding model and said: “The National Health Service is close to breaking point. It is in the worst state I have ever seen. Millions of patients languish on waiting lists and staff shortages are endemic. Hope is in even shorter supply.

“Inevitably, questions about whether the NHS can survive in its present form are surfacing. Stage right, the whispers grow louder that the current funding model – paid for through general taxation – has to give way to more people paying more privately.

“The NHS’s problem is not how it is funded. It is how it is organised.”

The former health secretary urged the service to harness a technology revolution to predict and prevent ill-health and make healthcare operate far more efficiently.

Health officials pledged to eliminate long waits by July, a target they said they had achieved. Official figures show less than 3,000 people are facing such waits, down from 22,500 at the end of January. However, the number of patients waiting at least a year rose significantly at the same time.

While the numbers waiting more than 18 months fell by around 4,000, year-long waits went from 331,623 to 355,774.

Mr Milburn called for far more action to prevent ill-health and admissions to hospital. It follows studies suggesting that one in four patients admitted to hospital could have avoided admission if they had been offered the right help sooner.

A Department of Health spokesman said: “We are making progress in busting the Covid backlogs, including meeting our target to virtually eliminate two-year waiting lists.

“We have also rolled out innovations such as over 90 surgical hubs and over 90 community diagnostic centres across the country to increase patients’ access to tests, scans and checks in their local areas.

“Those waiting the longest are being offered a choice of an alternative provider to reduce their waiting time, and the My Planned Care website provides information on average waiting times for all hospital trusts in England, as well as support to help people manage their health whilst they wait.”

An NHS spokesman said: “NHS staff are doing everything possible to bring down long waits for patients, with significant progress made already, and patients are already able to choose the provider with the shortest waits.”