Waiting times are 'NHS key'

The NHS is making progress, the report is set to say

Patients must get treatment sooner if the government's handling of the NHS is to be judged a success.

That is the verdict from a group of senior health figures of the first annual report into the implementation of the NHS Plan, the government's 10-year programme for the service.

The NHS Modernisation Board says the NHS is doing well, but could do better.

The board's report, launched by Prime Minister Tony Blair and Health Secretary Alan Milburn on Thursday, says the challenge of reducing waiting times "cannot be overestimated."

Top 10 NHS achievements

10,000 more nurses working in the NHS

An end to dirty hospitals

10 major new hospitals opened

25% more critical care beds

714 more general and acute beds

30% increase in CT scanners

91% of cancer patients seen by a specialist within two weeks of GP referral

150 new rapid access chest pain clinics

797 GP surgeries modernised

Free nursing care for the elderly in care homes

It adds: "It will be the outcome on which the public judges the success of the NHS Plan."

But the message of the report - which sets out the success and failures of the past year - is that staff too have to play their part and embrace change.

The report issues a warning that change has to be delivered for the health service to retain public backing: "Unless the NHS can change to meet the expectations of the British public, that support will wane".

It also warns the government it must continue to plough money into the NHS.

"Clearly, a few years of extra investment, even on this scale, will not put right decades of under-funding immediately.

"Investment must be sustained so that, over the medium to long-term, the NHS can provide modern, patient-friendly services. There must be no going back to the lower levels of investment."

Professor Sir George Alberti, President of the Royal College of Physicians, and a member of the board, said: "This is a 10-year plan but the ship is pointing in the right direction."

But the Conservatives called the report "indulgent and self-congratulatory".

'Ambitious targets'

Reducing waiting times is the key aim for the year ahead, the report says.

It says the targets which have been set in this area are "ambitious", and their success will centre on having enough staff, beds and equipment and buildings.

The government is investing £30m to ensure the first milestone of ensuring no patient waits longer than 15 months for treatment is met in March 2002.

Unless the NHS can change to meet the expectations of the British public, that support will wane

The NHS Plan - A Progress Report

In October 2001, the figure stood at 8,100, meaning a significant reduction is needed in the next two months.

In its top 10 facts from the last year, the report highlights the 10,000 more nurses working in the NHS - halfway to the government's 2004 target.

Hundreds of extra hospital beds, and the opening of 10 new major hospitals are also praised, as is the 30% increase in the number of computer tomography (CT) cancer scanners.

The "end to dirty hospitals" which it says has been achieved also received plaudits from the board.

Prime Minister Tony Blair said the report gave "cautious grounds for "optimism".

"I think we all know there is a massive amount of progress to go, huge pressures on staff and lots more still to do.

"But on a whole range of issues there is a sense that if we keep on the right partnerships, evolving the health services and making the changes in the right way, we will get there in the end," he said.

Health Secretary Alan Milburn said: "The NHS 10-year plan is underway and there are real signs of progress."

He said the health service was benefiting from record levels of investment, but added reform was also crucial to improve the NHS.

Money and staff 'key'

But in the coming year, the areas which must be focussed on in the NHS include recruiting and retaining nurses, doctors and other NHS staff, particularly in London and the south-east, and improving access to NHS services.

Shadow Health Secretary Dr Liam Fox MP said: "The public will view it for what it is, the government's own report on their own performance.

"If patients were to assess the performance the results would be starkly different."

Roy Lilley, a former NHS manager and a robust critic of government health policy, said instead of reports and bureaucracy, the NHS simply needed "more money, and more staff".