article_snippet: Meanwhile a new report by the Nuffield Trust suggests the problems facing the NHS go far deeper into hospitals than just the front door at A&E. hospitals warn a 'deteriorating access to services is starting to affect patients attending even the best-performing hospitals'.
article_snippet: The think tank has warned that not only are patients waiting longer to be seen in A&E, access to key services across the hospital is being affected by 'systemic' declines in performance.
article_snippet: a report found the problems facing the NHS go far deeper into hospitals than just the front door at A&E, affecting access to planned treatments .
article_snippet: But a report highlights the problems with today's NHS
article_snippet: a report found the majority of hospitals breached a target on at least one of the six measures - most notably the A&E waiting time, the 18-week target for a hospital bed, and the six-week target for scans and other diagnostic tests.
article_snippet: Co-author Holly Dorning, said: 'the majority of hospitals are still receiving care within the target times, but our analysis shows that deteriorating access to services is starting to affect patients attending even the best-performing hospitals. '
article_snippet: But the fact that We are starting to see problems in other areas, like access to planned treatment, is a real concern.
article_snippet: The Nuffield Trust's analysis also questions the assumption that access to care deteriorates as hospitals are asked to treat more patients.
article_snippet: While extra activity in A&E, outpatient treatments and cancer care is matched with poorer performance against access targets, the NHS has absorbed an additional 240,000 diagnostic tests and an additional 45,000 urgent cancer referrals in the past year with little impact on performance against the associated targets.
article_snippet: Co-author Ian Blunt warned there is no 'quick fix' to the problems.
article_snippet: Co-author Ian Blunt said: 'While looking at a narrow set of targets can only tell us so much about the quality of care, The Nuffield Trust's analysis does suggest that some of the recent reductions in performance are systemic. '
article_snippet: There are no quick fixes for growing waiting times and we need to be prepared to see further breaches of targets in the future.'
article_snippet: The report states that longer waiting times could simply be the result of hospitals having to carry out more procedures.
article_snippet: Nuffield Trust analysis shows that increases in hospital activity are not always associated with a decrease in waiting time performance.
article_snippet: This again suggests that these problems may be systemic and that applying extra pressure at hospital level is not the best approach to reversing the recent performance drop.'