Row over 'cancelled' NHS operations

12:29am Thursday 21st August 2008

A dispute has broken out over the issue of cancelled operations after figures from the Conservatives suggested thousands of NHS patients had their surgery cancelled more than once.

Statistics from the Tories obtained under the Freedom of Information Act suggested that more than 7,000 patients had their NHS operation cancelled more than once in the last year in England.

Overall statistics showed that 77,302 operations in total were cancelled for non-clinical reasons.

But several NHS trusts hit back at the figures, saying they had supplied the wrong data to the Tories or accused the Conservatives of manipulating the figures.

The Department of Health also said thousands of cancellations were due to patients changing the date of the operation themselves - something that was not the fault of the NHS.

The figures were calculated from 124 NHS trusts across England and referred to operations cancelled for non-clinical reasons, including a shortage of beds, missing patient records, staffing issues and a lack of equipment.

The Tories extrapolated the data across 171 hospital trusts in England, saying around 105,000 operations were estimated to have been cancelled for non-clinical reasons in 2007/08.

Shadow health secretary Andrew Lansley said the Government was "spinning" the official statistics to hide the true total by only counting operations cancelled within 24 hours of when they were due to take place.

A Department of Health spokesman said 11,585 operations were cancelled because of "patient related problems", including the patient cancelling the operation themselves.

He added: "The number of cancelled operations needs to be set against the huge increase in the number of patients that the NHS is treating. Between 1997 and 2008, the number of elective admissions has increased by over 1.5 million whist the number of operations cancelled at the last moment remained at less then 1.5%."

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