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Waiting times and health checkson the NHS

2 January 2010 //
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The NHS consti­tu­tion has been around since January 2009.

It’s a promise from the NHS to you that they will look after you prop­erly, and that you have a right to be looked after well when you need to use NHS services like hospitals, doctors and dentists.

It’s taken a while to get there, but from January 2010 all the different organ­isa­tions that make up the NHS will have to pay special atten­tion to what it says when they make their decisions about how you’re going to get medical care.

The NHS Constitution gives you the right to:

  • free health­care, except what the govern­ment says you should pay
  • high stand­ards when you need advice or treatment
  • access medi­cines, as long as they’ve been prop­erly approved
  • fair and equal treat­ment, no favouritism
  • refuse treat­ment if you want
  • under­stand what your options are
  • choose who you want to be your doctor
  • have a say in the treat­ment and care you get

The govern­ment says it’s ready to add some more rights for you.

The right to not wait longer than 18 weeks for the medical care you need, and only 2 weeks if the doctor thinks you might have cancer. You may still need to wait longer if it’s important to wait for the good of your health.

You would have this right from April 2010.

The govern­ment doesn’t want this to be an excuse for people to sue the NHS whenever the waiting time goes over the limit. Instead they want it to be a way for people who’ve waited too long to get seen as quickly as possible.

If you do end up waiting too long, without agreeing it with your doctor first, then when you tell the NHS about it they will legally have to get you the appoint­ment you need, or find another way.

This doesn’t apply if you miss your appoint­ments, though. It’s your respons­ib­ility to make sure you turn up or cancel them in plenty of time if you can’t get to them.

Understanding waiting times

  • The govern­ment wants to help you under­stand how long you should expect getting treat­ment to take, and they’re thinking about giving out treat­ment plans so you can under­stand what you have to do.
  • They’re also worried that in urgent cases like cancer, although doctors might have a very good reason for not explaining that you need to see a specialist quickly, so you get less stressed and worried by it, this some­times means that people put off their appoint­ments, which could be dangerous.
  • The govern­ment says that if there’s a major national or local problem, for example a flu pandemic, NHS services would be allowed to have longer waiting times.

If you’re over 40 years old but younger than 75, you would get the right to a health check every five years. This health check would test you for common prob­lems – heart disease, stroke, diabetes and kidney disease and more.


Everyone would have this right from April 2012.

As part of the check, the doctor or nurse who give you the check would also help you with things like keeping healthy, how to get to and keep to the right weight, and how to stop smoking as all these things help make you less likely to get the diseases they’re checking for.

They’ll also be able to sort you out with medical treat­ments like statins, which help lower cholesterol.

The govern­ment also wants to talk about what rights they should be thinking about for the future.

  • In the government’s last survey, a lot of people thought that being tied to a GP surgery because you live in a partic­ular area wasn’t very useful, so the govern­ment is already getting rid of that.
  • People also thought that if doctor’s surgeries opened on even­ings and week­ends then life would be much easier for them. The govern­ment wants to think about making this part of the NHS constitution.
  • The NHS thinks it can give everyone access to an NHS dentist by March 2011. When they hit that target, the govern­ment wants to think about putting it in the NHS constitution.
  • There are a few pilot schemes around where people just like you are being given the money to get the care they want. When these pilot schemes have finished and the govern­ment has seen the results, they’ll look at putting it in the NHS constitution.
  • When you’re at the end of your life, you might want to spend that time at home instead of in a hospital. There’s lots of things to sort out about how the NHS helps people cope with death before we get to this, but the govern­ment hopes they’ll be in the right place to look at it by 2013.
  • The govern­ment also says that in 2011 and 2012 they want to set a new standard of a week (maximum two weeks) so you can get cancer tests and results done more quickly.
  • They also want every region in England to have a Constitution Champion who can help make hospitals and surgeries ready for ques­tions about the consti­tu­tion and patient rights, and who knows the consti­tu­tion inside out so they can help patients under­stand their rights and responsibilities.

That’s great / really good / really bad / could do with improve­ment – but what can I do about it?


Get your ideas, comments, ques­tions and obser­va­tions to the Department of Health by 5 February 2010:

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Thinking positive

22 March 2010 //
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This website is here to prove to Government (and anyone else who uses language in an over complic­ated way, all the while claiming they want feed­back from members of the public) that speaking plainly, even about tricky subjects, isn’t just possible, but abso­lutely neces­sary.

I hope this website also helps prove that you don’t have to be patron­ising when you write plainly, and that assuming people are just too stupid or lazy to get involved in govern­ment is in itself a lazy and stupid assumption.

Thing can only get better?

Now, it’s very easy to fall into a trap of being negative about the immove­able forces of bureau­cracy we encounter every day, but as diffi­cult as it is to make out from the mill­pond calm on the surface, there are definite stir­rings of some­thing shifting beneath it. One of the first hints was Show Us a Better Way, a national compet­i­tion to come up with new ways of using public data. The next, and biggest hint yet, was the launch of www.data.gov.uk.

There are other areas of govern­ment making some great inroads into improving commu­nic­a­tion too. One I want to pick out specially is Directgov. They may have some truly hideous advert­ising, but they’ve also started doing plain language summaries for some key consulta­tions! Great news. And they’re also building a place for people to search for consulta­tions that interest them and even if, by their own admis­sion, this only involves a some­what poor two govern­ment organ­isa­tions right now, it’s a very encour­aging start.

So credit where it’s due. But we still have a long way to go.

What else is there?

However, to me there’s still a big part of this picture that’s missing. A lot of people talk about digital literacy, that is, getting the skills you need to use computers safely and effect­ively, but the reason I’m so focused on plain language is a much bigger concern, literacy itself — plain and simple. 

There are at least 6 million people in this country with reading and writing skills at less than GCSE level, and for most of them it doesn’t matter whether they can work a computer or not — so few people are writing with them in mind that they’re excluded from taking part almost completely.

What can I do?

  • Write to your MP, MEP and local coun­cil­lors. Ask them what they’re doing to reach the people they need to reach — are they using plain language? Do they have effective outreach programmes?
  • When you use govern­ment websites and services, use the feed­back buttons to tell them if what they’re talking about isn’t easy to get to grips with. Tell them you want plain language and real communication.
  • Write to your local paper, talk about it on Facebook, take it to your forums, heck, take it down the pub! Make sure everyone knows what a differ­ence this simple change can make to people’s lives.
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A new way to find out about government consultations

18 April 2009 //
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As well as a bit of revamping (alright, maybe a lot, please tell me what you think!), today I’ve been working on installing a “change monit­oring” service on as many central govern­ment websites as I could.

What does that mean? It means that you can now sign up here, and when one of the central depart­ments, for example DCMS or BERR, updates their consulta­tions list, you get it sent to you!

You can also sign up to get updates by email. Extra useful for keeping an eye on what those lot are up to!

Expect a new poll early next week.

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