Latest news with #hospitalappointments
The Independent
23-05-2025
- Health
- The Independent
Fact check: NHS appointments rise hailed by government is smaller than last year
This roundup of claims has been compiled by Full Fact, the UK's largest fact checking charity, working to find, expose and counter the harms of bad information. New data obtained by Full Fact reveals that a 3.6 million rise in the number of hospital appointments – celebrated by the government as a 'massive increase' – is actually smaller than the increase achieved the year before. Previously unpublished NHS data going back to 2018, released to us under the Freedom of Information Act, shows that the specific appointments that were the focus of Labour's pledge to deliver additional activity had already been increasing for several years. The rise hailed by Labour is actually less than in the equivalent period in 2023/24, and broadly similar to the one in 2022/23. We've been investigating Labour's 2024 election campaign pledge to deliver 'an extra two million appointments' for our Government Tracker. But it wasn't clear until months after the party came into government what kinds of appointments were being counted, or what kind of baseline 'extra' was being measured against. We asked the government many times exactly how it would measure the pledge, but it repeatedly failed to explain how it was defined. As we wrote before the election, two million more appointments 'would be quite a small rise', when put in the context of all hospital activity. Answers at last When NHS England finally published the data behind the pledge in February, we found that the government was measuring its performance by counting just certain types of hospital operation, test or appointment. But there was no published history of this data which would allow us to compare the recent rise with previous years – and as far as we can tell, there still isn't. (While NHS England publishes a wide range of data, this doesn't seem to include historical figures on the specific set of operations, scans and appointments that the government said was the focus of its pledge.) This meant it was still impossible to know whether a rise of over two million appointments in five months (now 3.6 million in eight months) was really a big deal. After all, England's population is growing, and ageing – you'd expect people to need more appointments every year. So we submitted a Freedom of Information request to NHS England, and at the end of April we obtained the data going back to 2018. This at last reveals that the number of these appointments was rising for several years before Labour took office. Indeed the rise of 3.6 million in the first eight months of the Labour government, which the health secretary Wes Streeting described this month as a 'massive increase', is actually smaller than the 4.2 million rise that happened in the equivalent period the year before. (This is after the figures have been standardised to account for the varying number of working days per month. Our calculations standardise the figures to the latest period, following a method similar to that used by NHS England in the published data.) In percentage terms, the 3.6 million rise is 7.7% more than in the same eight-month period the year before, but it follows rises of 10.1% and 8% in the previous two years. As for the figure of two million, we now know that it was a promise to deliver what would be by far the smallest rise in the number of these appointments since the height of the pandemic. A Statistical Ambassador for the Royal Statistical Society, Nevil Hopley, reproduced our calculations and reached the same results. We shared the data we obtained with the Institute for Fiscal Studies, which told us: 'As we said at the time it was announced, the target was never particularly ambitious: two million additional operations, scans and appointments is relatively small compared to the number of people the NHS treats each year. And in recent years, this measure of activity has grown by much more than two million a year.' None of this means that the government isn't improving the NHS. And while the rise in appointments may not seem remarkable compared with previous years, it does obviously still mean that hospitals have been doing more than before. When we asked the Department of Health and Social Care about the figures, it told us: 'On entering office last July, the Secretary of State was advised that the fiscal blackhole meant elective appointments would have to be cut by 20,000 every week. Instead, this government provided the extra investment needed to deliver more than three million additional appointments, significantly dwarfing our own pledge.' This new data adds much-needed context to the government's claims about the NHS, and it should not have required a Freedom of Information request for it to be released. If politicians are unwilling to be transparent about their promises, voters have every reason to wonder what is hidden in the small print they don't share.
BBC News
23-05-2025
- Health
- BBC News
Jersey: Hospital patients let down by Blue Islands' cancellations
David Thompson has a tumour on his right lung. He was travelling from Jersey to Southampton for a scan and biopsy to find out whether he has cancer when his flight was cancelled with less than an hour's flight was one of 29 between Jersey and Southampton which have been cancelled or delayed so far this year by Channel Islands airline Blue Thompson said he managed to reschedule his medical appointments but was "fearful" it wouldn't be possible. He had cancer seven and a half years ago and said he knew with a disease like cancer "every day counts". Blue Islands said it was "truly sorry" a small number of patient hospital flights had been disrupted in recent weeks. 'Exception rather than norm' A spokesperson from the airline said patient hospital travel was one of the most important services it provided for airline acknowledged the weekday morning flight from Jersey to Southampton was key to reaching hospital said since the beginning of this year it had two cancellations on this service – one for technical reasons and one for crew more had been cancelled for weather reasons, the company said, and one when Jersey airport was closed due to a security airline said: "Although we know it will come as no consolation to those whose journeys and hospital visits were impacted, such events are the exception rather than the norm." 'Upset me a lot' Jersey Hospital regularly sends patients to University Hospital Southampton for treatments it cannot provide Mr Thompson's partner shared his experience with Blue Islands in a Facebook group, he was astonished by the number of people who replied with similar stories, dating back to Thompson said it felt like the airline did not said the cancellation cost him £140 in hotel and taxi costs, but what concerned him most was that he believed there were three other people on the flight due to have PET scans - for cancer diagnosis or said: "One of them was a really older gentleman so, for him, it would have been a hell of a long day. "When we were collecting the baggage from the baggage carousel, he shed a tear. "That upset me a lot."Mr Thompson is still waiting for the results of his PET scan and biopsy. Four days after Mr Thompson's flight to Southampton was cancelled, Annette Jackson, travelling to get treatment for a degenerative eye condition, had a similar was booked on a 15:00 BST flight the afternoon before an appointment in Southampton when her flight was cancelled. She was put on a flight scheduled to leave three hours later, but it was delayed until 20:30 BST."I got to Southampton at 10 o'clock at night when I should have been there at 4 o'clock in the afternoon, very tired, very exhausted," she Jackson said Blue Islands claimed the flight was cancelled because of technical issues."They'd shoved us all on to the later flight, which was full and the same coming back," she Islands said it did not cancel flights at the last minute due to passenger said this not only impacted customers but came with significant financial costs. 'Very traumatic' Mrs Jackson said it could be "very traumatic" to spend five hours in an airport because of her sight loss."Luckily, my husband was with me or else it would have been really bad because I can't see anything in bright light," she Jackson said she was "dreading" her next flight to the UK for another medical appointment in eight weeks' time. The Jersey Consumer Council (JCC) said situations like this were "the tip of the iceberg" when it came to the way flight cancellations could impact Carl Walker said there had been growing problems in recent months, with increasing flight cancellations and a result, the JCC has launched a survey for passengers to share their experiences of flying with Blue Islands. Mr Walker said UK and EU law meant passengers on UK and EU-based airlines could claim more than £200 compensation for cancellations, but equivalent law did not exist in the Channel said because Blue Islands was a Channel Island airline, anybody using it was unprotected from a consumer Walker said: "The government needs to change the law, it either needs to create its own compensation scheme for any airline based in the Channel Islands or it simply needs to try and extend the the UK Law to cover the Channel Islands."This really does need urgent attention." 'It isn't acceptable' In 2020, Jersey's government loaned Blue Islands £10m to be paid back over six of this agreement was to help the airline keep providing islanders with "access to essential medical care".Mr Thompson said the government should be doing something to make sure people could rely on the service, and to make sure the money the health service spent on patient flights to Southampton was not wasted."It isn't acceptable," he said: "It's not about me, it's about everybody who needs that treatment in Southampton, they deserve better than this... because in a lot of cases it can be the difference."The BBC has approached the Government of Jersey for comment.
