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Labour pays millions to make hospital stats more flattering: ministers accused of massaging NHS figures by paying £3m a month to take off waiting lists patients who no longer need treatment. Interesting story from @oliver_wright

https://x.com/PippaCrerar/status/2018594915027124225?s=20

So they’re finding patients who died waiting for treatment, removed them from the lists, and are now boasting about the lists being shorter, alluding to more treatments being carried out.

Now imagine how this works with the elderly and vulnerable if “Assisted Dying” is allowed to happen…

I don't see putting out a more accurate statistic as an especially egregious crime.

It’s that they’re saying “Waiting lists are down, well done us”, while all they’re actually doing is removing those who died waiting for their treatment.

If they had actually increased the number of treatments, then absolutely they can claim the win.

Its not just dead patients being removed from waiting lists (indeed these are automatic so as to prevent waiting list co-ordinators contacting bereaved relatives innappropriately), but duplicates, ones superseded by a change in plan, those who are not able to attend (for example having moved abroad) those that have got better on their own, those that have gone private, and those that have changed their mind, perhaps due to other illness.

Tidying up waiting lists like this has been routine throughout my professional life under governments of all stripes. It is key to having accurate statistics and also making maximum use of facilities by not sending for people innappropriately. Current management are going through anyone on RTT (Referal to Treatment) where there's a risk that they will be over 52 weeks at the end of March. This is done on an individual patient level with a plan for each.

Does it really cost 3,000,000 a month? Or is that the staff costs of people already doing this?

No idea what the cost is, but we do have Band 7 and higher managers working on this every week. There are about 7 million on English RTT pathways, but also a very high degree of churn as the Median RTT time ia a lot lower than 52 weeks, cancer pathways being 2 weeks for example.

Starmer falls before the May elections. He might fall this week.

Shelagh Fogerty on LBC wants him gone.

How does he fall? Who will challenge? He won't just resign.

Internal Party pressure. If MacSweeney hasn't gone by close of business today surely people will move on him.

He was nothing to do with Mandelson’s appointment.

MacSweeney was the conduit between Mandelson and Starmer since before the election.

Apparently Mandelson and MacSweeney are politically very close.

The New Labour project has been irredeemably soiled by the emails. Starmer is now tainted by Epstein. There is no way back. It is Boris and Pincher time.

Ooh interesting, I did not know that…

In theory appointing Mandelson to handle Trump was genius. In practice it has been anything but.

Interesting that Starmer is in serious peril whilst Trump claims the latest drop exonerates him fully and he has never been stronger. According to Trump, Clinton and Gates have had their game tumbled and are looking at Epstein jail time.