Sign up to Gransnet Daily
Our free daily newsletter full of hot threads, competitions and discounts
Subscribe
The Labour Party took government in 1997 with the promise of “saving the NHS”.
During the Major years he had struggled to reverse much of the damage done by Thatcher, and although he was a constant and passionate exponent if the NHS, was largely unsuccessful in reversing much of the funding cuts inflicted on the NHS by Thatcher.
The NHS was perceived to be in crises by the time the Labour government took control in 1997.
The Kings Fund produced a progress report from 1997 to 2010 measuring progress against a number of criteria.
* Between 1997 and 2010 funding for the NHS doubled.
*progress during those 13 years had been considerable
*the NHS was high performing in a number of areas
* more people were being seen, more quickly.
A number of important achievements are highlighted, including major reductions in waiting times and rates of health care associated infections and progress in reducing smoking rates. There has been a concerted effort to implement national standards of care for major diseases across the NHS which has contributed to the continued falls in deaths from cancer and cardiovascular disease.
There are less obvious changes too, including improvements in data collection and reporting, at a national and local level. There is now far more information about performance in the public domain, accessible to patients, carers and members of the public, than ever before.
The report concluded
Despite the challenges the future holds, the next government must build on the progress made and aspire to create an NHS that can deliver quality to all patients, in all areas, all of the time.
So now let’s turn to what has happened to this progress since 1997 and whether it has been maintained over the past 10 years.
Cancer waiting times.
The Labour government had reduced the waiting time, with 85% of patients waiting no more than 62 days to first definitive treatment.
Anyone who has been unfortunate enough to have suffered from cancer like me will know how terrifying the wait is.
Between 2009 and 2014 the target of 85% was consistently reached and in most cases exceeded. So less than a total of 15% of people with suspected cancer were having to face that awful wait.
From 2014 the target was failed and has not once returned to the 85% since then. In fact it is climbing and by 2017 was consistently about 20% of people having to wait and is still climbing.
We all know that cancer success rates are related to early intervention.
I expect the NHS cancer mortality rates will almost certainly deteriorate.
notnana
Let me repeat
This isn’t Labour propaganda.
These are reports by The Kings Fund and The Nuffield Trust.
You aren’t surely suggesting that they are in thrall to the Labour Party????
Fact checks
Claim: Jeremy Corbyn said there were 33,000 nurse vacancies at the moment in the NHS
Reality Check: The Labour leader made this claim while talking about the state of the health service under the Conservatives. It's a bit of an understatement - there are currently 39,500 nursing vacancies in the NHS in England, according to figures from NHS Improvement.
Boris Johnson referred to "the 40 new hospitals that we are building"
The government pledged billions of pounds for hospital projects across England, at the start of the Conservative Party conference last month.
But while the plans include a £2.7bn investment for six hospitals over five years, a further 34 hospitals will share only an initial £100m in funding to start developing future projects.
A substantial amount of extra money would be needed to bring those plans to fruition.
So it's not correct to suggest that 40 new hospitals are currently being built.
*Let me repeat
This isn’t Labour propaganda.
These are reports by The Kings Fund and The Nuffield Trust.*
Let me repeat, the figures are accurate.
Labour using the figures to condemn the Tories when it is their Wales colleagues who are responsible for dragging down UK stats is when it becomes propoganda.
You can use accurate stats to lie!
Wale's cancer target rates are so bad that they make the UK fail overall. When actually England Scotland and NI are generally doing quite well!
Perhaps if cancer wait times are close to your heart you will ask your labour candidate how they plan to avoid their Welsh labour colleagues mistakes, and keep up the good standards that have been established by their competition elsewhere?
And wait times are just the start of it! Once you do get seen in Wales you do not have the same treatment options that you would have had if diagnosed elsewhere in the UK.
notnana
Perhaps you can let me know exactly what you mean only I can’t see how the report on the NHS in England can be affected by the figures in Wales. They would have their own separate report
I will be interested to see the report on wales as without that it is difficult to comment.
The damning cancer wait times that labour are quoting to condemn theit opponent are UK wide overall failire rates. They have been implying that this is their opponent's fault when actually the figures include Wales. Who are failing cancer patients very badly. England is doing a much better job!
I will be interested to see the report on wales as without that it is difficult to comment.
Good. As you say you are particilarly interested in cancer services, you should be angry on behalf of Welsh patients who are getting far inferior services under labour.
Then come back and say whether or not you would like to see that sort of service rolled out across the UK
I have read that the Welsh NHS suffered 8.3% of cuts in 2011 as opposed to the English cut of 0.9%
That to my mind is an enormous difference.
Wales has not adopted the same systems as England. They do not have the same fast track system. They fail you before you even enter the system!
Welsh labour is true to labour's form.
Never admit that anything Cons do or did worked well: scrap it all and reinvent the wheel. That is why you do not get the same fast track service you would get in England.
Their refusal to adopt the systems that work well in England could cost lives!
But they care more about rubbishing their opposition than they do about running a good service so..
It is pure arrogence to not adopt a cancer system that works because they must do it differently to cons.
Its Corbyns catchphrase isnt it, how he will do everything differently
How many babies will be thrown out with the dishwater if he gets his way?
Whatever the argument relating to Wales and the NHS and I have no reason at the moment to doubt your examples, what you can’t dispute is the fact that the reports quoted, lay the reason for a failing NHS entirely on Tory cuts.
How the systems are or are not run in Wales is an entirely different issue. Interesting I’m sure, but the fact remains that the cuts to the Welsh budget were draconian, and any organisation would suffer exceedingly from such a shock.
England is not failing when it comes to cancer wait times. Labour are implying that the NHS is failing cancer patients across the board, but it is not! www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/06/Cancer-Waiting-Times-Annual-Report-201617-1.pdf
I have just skim read a report by NHS Wales on cancer care.
What I can’t understand is your assertion that the way it is run is entirely down to the Welsh Labour Government, when the report makes it absolutely clear that all decisions relating to cancer diagnosis, care and treatment are made entirely and independently by clinicians.
Just as it is done in England.
I suggest the difficult6 they found themselves suddenly in was the devastating cuts made by the Westminster government of over 8% in the NHS in Wales.
Labour aren’t suggesting it it is THE KINGS FUND!!!
You have got yourself entirely hung up on this false fact.
The fast track system that england has in place, which NI has also adopted for some cancers, is not at clinicians discretion. How they refer, diagnose and treat within that systen is down to clinicians, but the system is not optional.
OK now it is time for you to supply some explanations, references and links etc to all your assertions notnan
Labour supporters seem to take the almost religous view that anything good that ever happens is always down to god labour. Anything bad that happens is because of free will someone else's fault!
If labour wont take any accountability for what they have done to Wales then what is the point of them having the reins there at all??
I’ve found some stuff
Wales will become the first UK nation to introduce a new single waiting time target for cancer patients.
It is an effort to speed up diagnosis and improve poor survival rates for the 17,000 patients who get it every year.
The clock will start on cancer treatment for all patients as soon as it is suspected, not just those with clear symptoms.
The two-month target from next June is expected to eventually replace the two-track system.
There are concerns that the current cancer targets do not reflect long delays some patients face waiting for diagnosis or treatment.
Health Secretary Vaughan Gething said the change - making Wales the first UK nation to move towards a single cancer waiting time - was the "right thing to do".
He recognised that existing targets had not been met often enough but said 92% of cancer patients were being treated within target times.
There are currently urgent and non-urgent routes to getting treatment
If you are urgent - and the signs of cancer are obvious - you're referred by your GP to hospital and your treatment is supposed to start within 62 days
But if you symptoms are more unclear, vague or there is a suspicion it could be cancer - you might face months of being sent around different parts of the health service before cancer is diagnosed.
Only when that happens does the clock start - and then you're on a non-urgent 31 day route. It might seem faster but you've been already waiting.
Doctors say there are "considerable challenges" with rising demand, while they aim for earlier diagnosis to push Wales up the league tables for cancer survival in Europe.
Prof Tom Crosby, medical director of the Wales Cancer Network, said he believed the single cancer pathway was ambitious but the aim was to improve patient chances as well as their experience and also be a "platform" for improving access to diagnostic screenings and tests, which would be coming under increasing pressure.
"This has the potential to transform our diagnostic cancer services in Wales and I believe Wales would be leading the way in this regard," he said.
"Scotland are very interested in what we're doing, England are looking at something a little more modest, focusing just on the diagnostic part of the journey. But we think access to treatment after the patient has had the diagnosis is also a really important thing to do."
Speeding up the process of diagnosing patients - including all the scans they need at a one-stop shop - has been the subject of a pilot in two hospitals over the last year.
At Royal Glamorgan, 259 patients with vague symptoms of cancer were referred by their GPs and given the full range of tests at one time. Altogether 10% were found to have cancer.
At Neath Port Talbot hospital, 45 patients were found to have cancer out of 385 seen. Around half were not diagnosed but were found to have nothing sinister and 40% were found to have a significant issue but nothing cancerous.
Peter Hall, 77, a retired construction worker from Swansea, was given a CT scan. He got results a few hours later and told he was clear of cancer although he had a lung infection.
"It answered a lot of questions, everything was spot on," he said. "It would be good if it could be increased for more patients, it's a marvellous idea."
Richard Pugh, of Macmillan Cancer Support, said the announcement came on the same day that latest cancer waiting times revealed that 120 patients did not start their treatment on time in September.
"What is vitally important now, is how well this new monitoring system helps deliver tangible front-line service improvements which improve care for people with cancer in Wales," he said.
This seems to suggest that the cancer fast track system is the same in Wales and England.
Correct me if I’m wrong
www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/new-fast-track-cancer-tests-by-pass-specialist-referrals-with-aim-to-save-5000-lives-a-year-10337631.html
Registering is free, easy, and means you can join the discussion, watch threads and lots more.
Register now »Already registered? Log in with:
Gransnet »Get our top conversations, latest advice, fantastic competitions, and more, straight to your inbox. Sign up to our daily newsletter here.
