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NHS inpatient and outpatient waiting events, quarter ended 31 March 2008 and revised data for April 2007 – December 2007

  • Document type:
    Statistics
  • Author:
    Department of Health
  • Published date:
    30 May 2008
  • Gateway reference:
    Not required
  • Copyright holder:
    Crown
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The latest quarterly national statistics on NHS inpatient and outpatient waiting events produced by the Department of Health were released on 30th May 2008 according to the arrangements approved by the UK Statistics Authority.

NHS inpatient and outpatient waiting events figures for the quarter ending 30th May 2008 include data for England, Strategic Health Authorities, and NHS Trusts and PCTs.

This release also presents scheduled revisions to statistics covering the period April 2007 to December 2007.

The key points from the latest release are:

Inpatient Events

  • The number of decisions to admit has increased by 40,300 (3.8%) from last quarter and by 61,800 (6.0%) since the equivalent quarter last year.  Similarly, the number of admissions from the list has increased by 48,700 (4.9%) from last quarter and by 79,200 (8.3%) since the equivalent quarter last year.

Outpatient Referrals and attendances

In quarter 4 of 2007-08:

  • First attendances at consultant outpatient clinics have increased by 53,200 (1.5%) to 3.5 million and total attendances increased by 349,800 (3.2%) to 11.2 million compared to the equivalent quarter of 2006-07.
  • Did not attend (DNA) rates have decreased slightly this quarter compared to the equivalent quarter of 2006-07.  This quarter, the percentage of patients who did not attend for their first outpatient attendance is 8.8% a fall of 0.3% against the equivalent quarter of 2006-07.
  • The number of GP referrals made has increased by 182,500 (8.0%) against the same period last year.  The number of other referrals made has increased by 76,700 (5.9%) against Q4 2006-07.

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