NHS introduces new performance indicators for 1994-5

The government has decided to introduce two new sets of indicators into the 1994-5 NHS performance tables - on waiting times for first outpatient appointment and on charters in general practice.

NHS trust and directly managed units will have to provide information by 28 April 1995 on the percentage of patients seen by the consultant within 13 weeks and within 26 weeks of written referral by a general practitioner in surgical specialties, general medicine, and dermatology. At the same time family health services authorities will have to declare the percentage of general practices with a practice charter.

In Executive Letter (94) 81 the NHS Executive says that the other indicators will be the same as in 1993-4 - that is, the percentage of patients assessed within five minutes of arrival in accident and emergency departments; the percentage of outpatients seen within 30 minutes of appointment time; the percentage of elective episodes performed on a day basis; the percentage of NHS patients admitted within three months and within 12 months of being placed on a waiting list; the number of patients not admitted within a month of last minute cancellation of their operation; and the percentage of ambulances arriving within 14 minutes in urban areas and 19 minutes in rural areas.

The executive is considering other indicators for 1995-6, including the number of children who are nursed on adult wards. Dr Bob Buckland, a consultant anaesthetist in Winchester, who represents the Joint Consultants Committee on the group which has been discussing performance indicators, told the JCC last …