Waiting times for radiotherapy treatment: not all that mysterious and certainly preventable.

A computer program which deals specifically with the analysis and prediction of waiting times for radiotherapy has been written for a standard spreadsheet. The model has several components. The basic module calculates waiting times on the basis of any mismatch between the number of patients referred for treatment each week and the number of patients who can actually start treatment in that week. Monte Carlo simulations are used to estimate the 95% confidence intervals on projected waiting times. Another module calculates projected waiting times for three different categories of treatment, given user specified parameters, including financial data. The trade-offs between financial profit and waiting times for treatment are demonstrated. This shows quite explicitly the human consequences (in terms of delay in starting treatment) of decreasing, for fiscal reasons, resources allocated to certain categories of patients. The advantage of this type of analysis is that it clearly shows that waiting lists do not always arise through mismanagement of resources, they arise because resources are inadequate.