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Market Based Reforms Have Not Harmed Equity in the NHS: Researchers
Until recently, hospital waiting times were seen as a significant problem for the NHS. However, over the past 10 years, as the government increased the supply of doctors, increased funding for the health service, set rigid waiting time targets, and, more recently, introduced market based reforms, waiting times have dropped considerably.
Yet little was known about whether the drop in waiting times had been equitably distributed with respect to socioeconomic status.
So a team of researchers, led by Zack Cooper and Julian Le Grand of the London School of Economics & Political Science, examined changes in waiting times for patients undergoing three key elective procedures in England between 1997 and 2007 (hip replacement, knee replacement and cataract repair). They then analysed the distribution of those changes between socioeconomic groups.
Waiting times were measured as days waited from referral for surgery to surgery itself. Results were then linked to patient postcodes and socioeconomic status was calculated using a recognised index of deprivation.
They found that average waiting times rose initially and then fell steadily over time. By 2007, there was far less variation in waiting times across the population.
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