Number of patients waiting 6 or more weeks for diagnostic tests goes up
Two in every five patients on hold for diagnostic procedures in the UK have already been waiting for 6 or more weeks at the end of July 2020. This reveals data from the NHS. 24 percent of patients have been waiting for at least 13 weeks. The NHS hat set itself a standard that this number should be as low as one percent of patients — which was therefore not met in July 2020. At the end of the month, a total of 1.236.628 patients did not have their diagnostic procedures yet.

While one year before in July 2019 only 4 percent of patients had to wait six or more weeks, this number has dramatically increased in July 2020. Its peak was two months before in May 2020 when the health system was dealing with the height of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Number of patients waiting six weeks or more for diagnostic procedures

The diagnostic procedure with the shortest waiting time was Electrophysiology with a median waiting time of 2 weeks. Patients with a referral to Urodynamics had to wait the longest with a median waiting time of 9.8 weeks.
['Vanessa Fillis']
['Data Journalism', 'Health', 'Nhs']