Consultation
launched on legal rights to waiting times and NHS Health Checks
for patients
Patients will have legal rights to maximum waiting times for
elective procedures and urgent cancer referrals and to an NHS
Health Check every five years for those aged 40-74, if proposals
published today are taken forward.
The proposals, set out in ‘The NHS Constitution: A
consultation on new patient rights‘, will mean that from 1
April 2010, patients will have the legal right to maximum waiting
times to start treatment by a consultant within 18 weeks of GP
referral, and to be seen by a cancer specialist within 2 weeks of
GP referral.
If the NHS is unable to meet this commitment, it will be required
to take all reasonable steps to find a range of alternative
providers that can. This will enable a patient to receive their
care more quickly, if this is what they want. The alternatives
could include private providers at NHS prices.
In addition, everyone aged 40-74 will have the right to an NHS
Health Check every five years to assess their risk of heart
disease, stroke, diabetes and kidney disease. Identifying any risk
early should help to reduce the incidence of these diseases and
the damage they cause.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown said:
"None of us can ever know what's around the
corner and it's one of the best things about being
British that the NHS will be there for us whatever happens. My own
parents could never have afforded all the surgery needed to save
my sight if they'd had to pay, and every day I hear from
people whose lives have been saved or transformed by the NHS.
Today we're reforming the NHS to secure its future –
ensuring that patients get a guarantee not a gamble by empowering
them with new legal rights.
"These measures build on the high standards and rightly
rising expectations of patient care. Every single person who has
to go into hospital or go through the difficulty of cancer will
have clear rights and real power guaranteeing them quick access to
care, or the offer of going private or to another NHS provider if
these standards are not met."
Health Secretary Andy Burnham said:
“The NHS Constitution lets people know what they can expect and
what they can demand. But, like the NHS, the Constitution must
evolve if it is to remain relevant.
“Waiting times are the shortest they have ever been but I want to
build on this and give patients a legal right to maximum waiting
times. Turning targets into legal rights will empower patients and
guarantee them the same high standards of care, regardless of
where they live.
“In the next decade, the NHS must make a decisive move towards
being a more preventative service and a more people centred
service. So I want to give all patients aged 40-74 the legal right
to have an NHS Health Check every five years. And we’re also
seeking views on whether there should be a legal right in future
to choose to die at home and to personal health budgets to give
people power over their own care.
“A decade of investment and reform has seen the NHS go from poor
to good. Now, in striving to move from good to great we need to
take a new approach – less about central targets, more about
rights and entitlements. These proposals will mean that patient
rights, enshrined in the NHS Constitution, will safeguard the NHS
for the future.”
Joe Korner, Director of Communications for The Stroke
Association, said:
“We could save up to forty thousand people from having a stroke
every year if we could make sure that their blood pressure and
other risk factors for stroke were kept under control. That is why
The Stroke Association believes these NHS Health Checks are so
important.
“Stroke is the biggest cause of severe adult disability and the
third biggest killer in the UK. NHS Health Checks will help to
identify those at a higher risk of stroke and how to do something
about it – whether that's through medication or taking
steps to eat more healthily, get more exercise or give up smoking.”
Including these rights in the NHS Constitution would ensure that
the NHS will never return to the days of patients waiting 18
months for treatment and offers people a quick and straightforward
means of redress for the small number of cases where their rights
are not met.
The consultation also seeks views on going even further and
including more rights in the future. These could include:
the right to choose to die at home;the right to access to NHS
dentistry;the right to personal health budgets; the right to
choose a GP practice offering extended access to evening and
weekend appointments; andthe right to key diagnostic tests for
suspected cancer patients within one week of seeing a GP, with an
interim milestone of 2 weeks.
Notes to Editors
The consultation can be found
at:http://www.dh.gov.uk/en/Consultations/Liveconsultations/index.htmThe
NHS Constitution, published in January this year, brought together
in one place what the NHS does, what it stands for and the
commitments it should live up to. It describes the values and
enduring principles of the NHS The waiting times right will ensure
that patients, irrespective of where they live, will receive their
care or, in the case of suspected cancer, see a cancer specialist
within maximum time limits. If this does not happen, the NHS will
be required to try to offer them a range of alternative providers
who can see them sooner wherever possible.The proposed right will
ensure everyone eligible is offered a NHS Health Check to assess
their risk of heart disease, stroke, diabetes, and kidney disease,
and given appropriate support to manage their risk. This programme
is both cost effective and clinically effective. It will help
people stay well for longer and will detect these disease much
earlier allowing better treatment for example, 20,000 cases of
diabetes and kidney disease will be detected earlier each year.For
media enquiries only, please contact the Department of Health
Newsdesk on 020 7210 5221.
Contacts:
Department of Health
Phone: 020 7210 5221
NDS.DH@coi.gsi.gov.uk