NHS bosses delay surgery "until you die or go private'. D Telegraph

NHS bosses delay surgery "until you die or go private'. D Telegraph 29 July 2011

BUT FOUR YEARS AGO, the NHS bosses were doing the same sort of thing, as the DAILY MAIL had reported:

Surgery delay as NHS trusts stall on bills

Last updated at 12:20 11 January 2007

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Hospitals are being ordered not to operate on non-urgent patients for four months

The NHS payments system is approaching meltdown as bosses delay operations and quibble over bills.

Hospitals are being ordered not to operate on non-urgent cases for four months because hospitals will not be paid if patients are treated faster than national targets.

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A new system, called Payment By Results, is designed to ensure that money follows the patient and hospitals are paid only for the treatment provided.

It is an incentive to improve efficiency in order to attract patients and thereby earn more money. The system should be fully implemented by 2008- 09 but is already in serious trouble.

Primary care trusts are querying if individual patients still live in the area or are finding they have no record of them in order to avoid bills. It means hospitals are drowning in paperwork and the system is in danger of collapsing, sources have told the Standard.

One hospital manager who asked not to be named said: "We have had letters from two trusts which refuse to fund patients waiting less than 20 weeks.

"This year is, if anything, likely to be worse. There is likely to be a very steep rise in the number of disputes. The trusts are scouring our returns on individual patients and questioning whether patient X is actually their resident or not.

"This is understandable but we have thousands of such queries as a result. Every trust in London is in a similar position."

He added that Labour?s vision for an NHS internal market driving efficiency is starting to fail in the same way a Tory attempt did.

The source said: "This is beginning to feel a lot like that, if not even worse."

Many hospitals in the capital are treating more patients than had been agreed, costing the 10 primary care trusts that answered a total of £28million. Projected across London, the over-performance would cost £84 million.

Several trusts admitted they are questioning hospital bills and are only paying for "verifiable activity".

An NHS London spokesman said: "The over-performance has to be seen in context...it amounts to less than a penny for every pound spent.

"Payment By Results is new and needs time. The key is that NHS organisations learn from the previous year."

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