NHS Choices publishes 18-week wait data

The Department of Health is making 18-week referral to treatment times available to patients on the NHS Choices website.

Patients can use the DH’s flagship website to see the percentage of admitted patients treated within 18 weeks from referral, and the number of weeks from which half of admitted patients started treatment from their referral.

Nick Chapman, national director of 18-week waits, said the information currently on the website is based on data from the three months spanning October to December 2007, and will be updated on a three monthly rolling period.

If there is data for less than 20 patients over the three month period, the information will not be shown.

The ‘Compare Hospitals’ section of the site also enables patients to see average length of stay, readmission rates, number of procedures performed per year and MRSA rates. NHS Choices hopes to develop the hospital scorecards by attracting more feedback from patients for the patient ratings section and publishing additional data such as C difficile rates as well as more information on clinical outcomes.