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Last Updated: Feb 18th, 2008 - 14:39:01 |
LONDON (Reuters) - The government is set to hit its six-month waiting list target for NHS hospital patients when figures for December are released on Friday.
Ministers had promised that no patient would have to wait more than six months to be admitted to hospital by the end of 2005, a target set in its NHS Plan in 2000.
Last month, Health Minister Lord Warner said the NHS was on track to hit the target.
November figures showed that 12,300 people had been waiting more than six months, down from over 260,000 five years ago.
In May 2000 almost 50,000 people had been waiting longer than 12 months for hospital admission, compared to only four in November, when just 22 had been waiting longer than nine months.
But a study by the National Centre for Social Research has suggested that despite these improvements, the public's own expectations on waiting times remained higher than the government's targets.
Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt has since announced that by 2008 no patient should have to wait longer than 18 weeks between referral by their family doctor and starting hospital treatment.
A number of hospitals are currently delaying non-urgent operations until the new financial year to avoid overspending their budgets, though they should still be done within the six month target.
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