LAST month The Times reported on the disturbing news that there are now 10,000 fewer beds in the NHS than when Labour came to power. Predictably, the article drew the ire of Sir Nigel Crisp, chief executive at the Department of Health and NHS, who, in a letter to the paper, decsribed the article as “confused and misleading” — the Government’s shorthand for unpleasant but true. What concerned me about Sir Nigel’s letter, however, was his next sentence: “Since the NHS Plan was published in 2000, we have opened 1,600 more general and acute beds, 750 more critical care beds and 600 more day-care beds.” In fact his own department’s statistics show that Sir Nigel’s 750 “more” critical care beds are included in his 1,600 “more” general and acute beds. Certainly confused and misleading, but also, arguably, untrue Such statistical sleights of hand are becoming an increasingly common and worrying trend. Two examples stand out in the last month alone.

The first concerns waiting times. The Government proclaimed last month that it is now presiding over the “lowest waiting list for ten years”. True, but not in the spirit of truth. What the figures really showed is that the number of patients waiting over five months for an operation has increased and that the number of patients waiting more than nine months for an operation has also increased. The only fall has been in patients waiting less than five months for treatment — hardly the kind of waits which are of great concern to the general public. A similar tactic was used when the latest figures for GP vacancy rates were published. The department declared that there were now “more GPs working in the NHS than ever before”. Yet go to the raw statistics and you’ll find that the number of GP vacancies has increased by 31 per cent in just a year. This is because many of the Government’s “new” GPs are part-time or working as locums. None of this was mentioned in the Government’s announcement but is of far more relevance to a patient who wants to be seen by a doctor.

At the recent NHS Alliance conference in Bournemouth a delegate asked Sir Nigel when the Government would stop re-announcing money for the service because it was deeply demoralising for staff who believed, wrongly, that they were to receive additional funds.

Sir Nigel neither denied it happened nor promised to bring it to an end, but said the department was “getting better” at not doing it.

This is a depressing message. Neither the electorate nor health professions are so naive as to believe that the NHS can be turned around overnight. They are well aware that there are endemic problems and that targets will not always be hit. By pretending otherwise, ministers do themselves no favours and make the public sceptical of even genuine successes. It also demoralises staff. How do nurses feel when they hear that millions have been invested in increasing staff numbers and yet their own ward is still dangerously understaffed? That in turn demoralises managers who are being asked to explain why the promised improvements are still not being delivered at local level. Given how important the state of the NHS will be at the next election it is surely in the Government’s own interest to admit their failings as well as their successes. They might be surprised by the reaction.

Oliver Wright is Health Correspondent of The Times.
oliver.wright@thetimes.co.uk

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