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 | | Monday, 4 February, 2002, 17:42 GMT Big jump in cancelled ops  Many operations are cancelled on the day The number of NHS operations cancelled for non-medical reasons on the day they were due to happen jumped by 29% last year, official figures show. Data released by Health Minister John Hutton in response to a parliamentary question show that a total of 77,818 operations were cancelled in the year 2000-01. This represents 1.42% of the total number of routine hospital admissions. In the previous year, 60,242 operations were cancelled - 1.12% of the total number of admissions. The number of cancelled operations has increased by 50% since Labour came to office, and by 61% since the data was first collected in 1994-95. Care homes Shadow Health Secretary Dr Liam Fox said: "The Health Secretary claims that 'the glass is half full'.
"Labour can't say they weren't warned. The Conservatives have pointed out repeatedly that Labour's chronic mismanagement of the care home sector has caused huge suffering for those waiting treatment." Dr Fox said cancelled operations represented much more than simple statistics. "Each case is a hope dashed, and an individual left in pain and fear." A spokesman for the Department of Health said: "The total number of cancelled operations has risen, but so has the number of operations the NHS does, which rose by almost one million between 1994 and 2001. "As a proportion of the work the NHS does, cancelled operations have risen by 0.36% per cent. "But we know too many operations are cancelled. In the long term the solution is to get more beds and staff into the NHS." | | See also:  Internet links: The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites Top Health stories now:  Links to more Health stories are at the foot of the page. | |||||||||||||||||
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