This is very interesting. It is obviously welcome from a patients perspective but it would be very useful if this type of target was accompanied by some sort of guidelines for Trust management. My own Trust includes all diagnostic tests under the '6-week wait' target including specialist genetic and metabolic investigations which often take 4-8 weeks to come back from the various referral labs we use. Any diagnostic test which exceeds the 6-week wait is therefore considered a 'breach' and requires much follow-up and investigation.
As a result, we have clerical staff expending considerable time and effort in phoning various referral labs and trying to chase up outstanding work - which I'm sure is as frustrating for them as it is for us.
Achieving a shorter waiting target for assays done 'in-house' seems eminently reasonable and 'do-able' but it is difficult to see how this will be achieved with the more specialist assays which are sometimes needed to make a definitive diagnosis. Do others' Trusts apply this 6-week target as rigorously as our own or do they allow you to 'exempt' certain tests? Just curious.
Thanks in advance
Louise Tilbrook
Louise Tilbrook
Principal Clinical Scientist
Dept of Clinical Biochemistry
Mid Essex Hospitals NHS Trust
Chelmsford
CM1 7ET
01245 515036
07919 016847
________________________________________
From: Clinical biochemistry discussion list [[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Jonathan Kay [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 07 February 2010 09:28
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Prime Minister on TaT
> "What we are going to do in the next parliament is [introduce] a two-
> week guarantee that you will see a specialist. So if you go to your
> GP, you see a specialist within two weeks.
>
> It will also become a guarantee that you will have all the
> diagnostic tests within two weeks.
>
> Then we want to move to one week, which would mean that for most
> people, they would be able under these new arrangements to get the
> results back on the same day, which hasn't been something that has
> happened in the past."
>
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/feb/07/helm-interview-gordon-brown-nhs
Jonathan
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