How many people are waiting for treatment on the NHS?

Figures published by the Department of Health show 1,053,400 people were waiting for hospital treatment at the end of August. This is 104,600 less than March 1997.

That might be due to the fact that the government has now turned its attention to reducing waiting times rather than overall numbers.

Ministers had pledged that no patient would have to wait more than 15 months for in-hospital treatment by the end of March.

The poor performance of one hospital meant the NHS failed to meet that target and up to 280 people are believed to be waiting this long for treatment as a result. However, in March 2001, 10,400 patients had waited more than 15 months for treatment.

There has been progress on the number of patients waiting more than 12 months for treatment, down almost 50% to 21,400 compared to last year.

Why are waits for in-patient treatment so long?

The reasons behind long waits for in-hospital treatment are complex and vary across the country.

The simple answer is the NHS does not have the capacity to treat every patient as quickly as it would like. A lack of doctors and nurses and a shortage of beds are to blame.

However, increased spending by the government and the recruitment of more medical staff appear to be having an effect.

According to early estimates, the NHS carried out operations on more patients last year than ever before - up by between 0.5% and 1%.

Since the health service treats more than 3m in-patients annually, that could represent some 30,000 extra operations.

What is being done to tackle the problem of long waits?

The government is using numerous approaches to reduce waiting times across the NHS.

Central to these are plans to boost the capacity of the health service to enable hospitals to treat more patients by recruiting thousands more doctors and nurses and building new hospitals.

It has also started to send some patients to hospitals on mainland Europe for treatment and to use spare capacity in the UK's private sector.

Ministers have also backed schemes aimed at encouraging doctors to treat more patients as out-patients.

A report by the Audit Commission last year suggested thousands more could receive treatment if those who did not really need to be in hospital were not admitted.

Similarly, the government launched an �8.5m scheme earlier this year to pay for trouble-shooters to go into hospitals where there are high rates of cancelled operations.

Officials say the programme will tackle the problems highlighted in this latest Audit Commission report.

Ministers are committed to reducing waiting times for NHS operations to 12 months by the end of next year and to just six months by 2005.

How does the UK compare to other European countries?

The NHS does not compare favourably to health systems in many European countries.

While the health service is widely considered to provide good value for money, it is not as efficient as those in France and Germany for example.

Long waiting times for hospital treatment are minimal in France and virtually unheard of in Germany.

That is why the government is using spare capacity in those countries to treat NHS patients. That policy is expected to be expanded over the coming months although there are concerns about the cost of treating British patients overseas.