Reducing waiting times for hospital treatment: lessons from the English NHS.

In recent years, the English NHS has achieved substantial reductions in waiting times for hospital treatment. This paper considers first whether the data used by the Government provide an accurate description of changes in waiting times and identifies some of the limitations of the measures used. It then attempts to identify how reductions have been achieved. It argues that some features of central government policy have been important - such as the use of targets - others, such as the introduction of new private sector capacity have not. It also shows that changes at local level have been critical to achieving the recorded improvements, but the precise impact of these is hard to identify.