How you can beat NHS waiting lists: By exercising the right to choose your ... trends now

Just imagine being able to shave months off your waiting time for an NHS operation at the touch of a button — and at no extra cost.

With seven million people in England stuck on NHS waiting lists for procedures such as hip and knee replacements — 40 per cent for more than 18 weeks — it might sound too good to be true. But it’s a real option for millions in that position — if only they knew how to do it.

Choosing or switching hospital is not a dodgy loophole: it’s part of the NHS rule book. All patients have the right to choose which hospital they are referred to for a first out-patient appointment — to an NHS hospital or private hospital that is working with the NHS.

They can also switch to another hospital that carries out NHS procedures (which may include private hospitals) with a shorter waiting list if they have been waiting longer than 18 weeks (the maximum time patients should have to wait for non-urgent treatment) or two weeks for a suspected cancer.

In fact, NHS patients could save, on average, 14 weeks — more than three months — of waiting for a procedure, from 22 weeks to eight weeks, by choosing their hospital via an online referral service, according to a report published last July called Time To Choose, by the Patients Association and the Independent Healthcare Providers Network (IHPN), which represents private hospitals and clinics.

Yet only half of NHS patients are aware that they are entitled to choose or switch where they are treated, according to a poll of 2,266 adults last May, the report said.

The groups have launched a campaign to increase public awareness of this little-known right, which they say could give millions of patients faster access to NHS treatment.

‘Making more patients aware that they have a right to choose where they have NHS treatment will allow them to access treatment as quickly as possible,’ says Rachel Power, chief executive of the Patients Association.

‘It would also serve to equalise waiting times across different parts of the country and between hospitals — with the effect of reducing average waiting times for the vast majority of people. That will result in better outcomes for patients and more effective and equitable services.

‘It will also help to restore patients’ confidence in the NHS and help to reduce the current waiting list backlog.’

Operations that might benefit most are those with the biggest variation in waiting times. These include: general surgery (such as hernia repair and gall bladder removal); ear, nose and throat operations (including tonsil removal and repair of the septum in the nose); and gynaecological procedures (such as hysterectomies and ovarian cysts).

While many people may not realise this, patients have had the right to choose where they receive their NHS care for around 20 years. This was then enshrined in the NHS Choice Framework, published in 2016, and the NHS Constitution for England, last updated in 2021.

It means you can be treated in any hospital that provides NHS care, whether it is an NHS or private hospital, for any kind of routine, planned treatment or diagnostic test.

Around 280 private hospitals treat NHS patients, with 1.2 million procedures a year carried out in private clinics.

And your chosen hospital doesn’t even have to be in your local area if you are willing to travel. If you do go outside your area for treatment, your travel and accommodation costs may even be covered under plans announced by the Government in February 2022.

However, in practice, few NHS patients are offered information about different hospitals and their waiting times when they are referred for treatment, according to the Time To Choose report, probably because many GPs don’t have time to do this during an appointment.

To see what a difference choosing a hospital would make, the Patients Association and the IHPN analysed NHS performance data from last April for six different specialties — trauma and orthopaedics; ophthalmology; ear, nose and throat; gynaecology; general surgery; and urology.

This data shows how long people have waited on average to begin treatment.

The analysis compared the top third of hospitals with the shortest waiting lists in England with the bottom third which had the longest waiting lists. (Specialist hospitals were excluded because they tend to treat a different mix of patients.)

It found ‘in every region across England, patients could join considerably shorter waiting lists by travelling to a different provider’.

For example, in the South West, there’s an 18-week difference between hospitals with the best and worst overall waiting times. In London, that difference is two months. And when it comes to individual specialties, that difference was even greater.

In the South West, for general surgery, patients waiting in the bottom third of hospitals were waiting on average over 35 weeks for treatment compared with just nine weeks in the top third — a difference of over six months.

Waiting for gynaecology care generally in the North West and East of England varied from more than 30 weeks in the bottom third of hospitals down to just over nine weeks in the top third — a difference of at least 21 weeks.

Separate analysis of NHS England data shows that for trauma and orthopaedics (such as hip/knee replacements), the wait at the best-performing NHS Trust, the Princess Alexandra, in Essex is on average 37.9 weeks — whereas the wait is just 12.4 weeks, on average, at the private Nuffield Health Holly Hospital, also in Essex.

In fact, to access faster care, patients do not need to travel far at all, the report found.

On average, a patient in England would need to travel just 13.2 miles to go from one of the worst-performing hospitals to one of the top performers. Doing this could save 14 weeks of waiting — reducing the time from an average of 22 weeks to eight.

The report concludes: ‘These significantly reduced waiting times could be realised in the short term by individuals who exercise their right to choose a provider.

‘Longer-term, the goal should be for a more functional system of choice, with patients fully empowered and supported to select the most appropriate provider.’

To encourage more patients to take advantage of their right to choose, campaigners want a single NHS website for patients to access easy-to-understand, up-to-date information about hospitals and their waiting times, and to book their appointments.

This would bring together the My Planned Care website, which currently provides information on waiting times and how to prepare for surgery, and NHS Find A Service, a website which identifies the closest hospitals, GPs, mental health care and other NHS services.

Neither of these websites currently allows you to make an appointment.

The campaigners also want the right to choose to be more widely promoted through leaflets and a dedicated phone line, and a survey carried out each year by NHS England to monitor awareness and uptake of this right.

‘NHS healthcare staff and patients should be given clear information from NHS England about patients’ rights, including their right to choose a provider, so that patients understand those rights and can make choices accordingly,’ says Rachel Power.

‘The NHS should also be providing patients with the information they need to choose a

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