Department of Health and Social Care
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NHS Referral To Treatment (RTT) times data September 2008
STATISTICAL PRESS NOTICE
Main Points
* Data is being published on Referral to Treatment (RTT) times for patients whose 18 week clock stopped during September 2008.
* Data for admitted patients (patients whose 18 week clock stopped with an inpatient/ day case admission) has been published each month since January 2007 on an unadjusted basis. See statistical notes.
* Data for admitted patients (patients whose 18 week clock stopped with an inpatient/ day case admission) has been published each month since March 2008 on an adjusted basis. See statistical notes.
* Data for non-admitted patients (patients whose 18 week clock stopped during the month for reasons other than an inpatient/day case admission) and incomplete RTT times for patients whose 18 week clock is still running was published for the first time in November 2007.
* The NHS Improvement Plan, published in July 2004, stated "By 2008, no one will have to wait longer than 18 weeks from GP referral to hospital treatment..." - DH PSA target 13. This data is being used to monitor progress towards this target. For admitted patients, adjusted data is used to assess performance.
* Publication is an important mechanism in order to improve coverage and completeness of the data.
* A data completeness assessment is being published alongside the reported figures in order to aid interpretation of the data. Further details on the methodology are available at http://www.dh.gov.uk/en/Publicationsandstatistics/Statistics/Performancedataandstatistics/18WeeksReferraltoTreatmentstatistics/DH_089757
Table 1 - RTT data by Strategic Health Authority (commissioner based) - admitted and non-admitted data - September 2008
* Table 1 shows the proportion of patients seen within 18 weeks by Strategic Health Authority for admitted and non-admitted pathways.
* The data is accompanied by a data completeness assessment for each Strategic Health Authority.
* The data completeness assessment compares the number of completed pathways with a known clock start reported in the RTT return against the expected number of pathways.
* In total, 302,000 admitted patients and 839,000 non-admitted patients, for whom English commissioners are responsible, completed their RTT pathway during September 2008.
* The NHS reported both the clock stop and the clock start for 299,000 (99.2%) of completed admitted pathways and 836,000 (99.7%) of completed non-admitted pathways.
* Of those pathways with both a known clock stop and a known clock start, 90.2% of admitted patients (adjusted) and 95.7% of non-admitted patients completed their referral to treatment pathway within 18 weeks.
* For September, one provider organisation submitted adjusted data in their unadjusted return.
Table 1a - Admitted data by Strategic Health Authority
Please see the attached document for this graph
Table 1b - Non-Admitted data by Strategic Health Authority
Please see the attached document for this graph
Table 2 - Referral to Treatment (RTT) Times - by time band (commissioner based) - September 2008
Please see the attached document for this graph
Table 3 - Proportion of patients seen within 18 weeks - by treatment function (commissioner based) - September 2008
Please see the attached document for this graph
Table 4 - Proportion of patients seen within 18 weeks and data completeness - by Primary Care Trust (commissioner based)
Please see the attached document for this graph
Statistical Notes
1. Referral to Treatment (RTT) times
RTT data is collected from English Primary Care Trusts on a responsible population basis (see note on next page) and from NHS Trusts on a provider basis.
The NHS Improvement Plan, published in July 2004, stated "By 2008, no one will have to wait longer than 18 weeks from GP referral to hospital treatment..." - DH PSA target 13. The RTT data measures referral to treatment (RTT) times in weeks, split by treatment function. The length of the RTT period is reported for patients whose 18 week clock stopped during the month.
The Department of Health published the 18 Weeks Rules Suite on 28 November 2007. The documents can be found at:
http://www.18weeks.nhs.uk/Content.aspx?path=/measure-and-monitor/Rules-suite/
The rules for the data collection are based on those set out in
the rules documents.
The data collection is in three
parts:
Part 1a - Completed pathways - admitted
Part 1b -
Completed pathways - non-admitted
Part 2 - Incomplete pathways
The return includes all patients whose 18 week clock stopped at any point in the reporting period. A column has been provided to enter data for patients whose length of RTT period is unknown, i.e. patients who have had a clock stop during the month but where the clock start date is not known.
For non-admitted patients, the RTT time is measured on an unadjusted basis - from the date the 18 week clock starts to the date that the 18 week clock stops, as detailed in DSCN 17/2006. For admitted patients, the RTT time is measured on an adjusted basis - from the date the 18 week clock starts to the date that the 18 week clock stops, allowing for legitimate pauses as described in the above 18 Weeks Rules Suite and outlined in the Operating Framework for 2008/09 paragraphs 2.24 to 2.28.
2. Provider and Commissioner based data
There are fundamental differences in coverage between commissioner based and provider based information. Commissioner based returns exclude all patients living outside England and all privately funded patients waiting for treatment in NHS hospitals. However they do include NHS funded patients, living in England, who are waiting for treatment in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, abroad, and at private hospitals; these patients are not included in the corresponding hospital based returns.
The differences are summarised in the diagram below:
Commissioner based returns reflect responsible based populations, which is defined as:
Responsible Population:
* all those patients resident within the PCT boundary; plus
*
all patients registered with GPs who are members of the PCT, but
are resident in another PCT; minus
* All patients resident in
the PCT, but registered with a GP who is a member of another PCT
Additional Information
Full details of RTT data for individual organisations is available at:
Press enquiries contact:
Press Office
Department of
Health
Telephone: 020 7210 5221
Knowledge and Intelligence
Department of Health
Room
4E63
Quarry House
Quarry Hill
Leeds LS2 7UE
Email: data18weeks@dh.gsi.gov.uk
Prepared by the Government Statistical Service
