NHS patients to be offered the opportunity to travel for treatment

Around 400,000 eligible patients are set to benefit from the travel offer

The NHS has announced that hundreds of thousands of patients who have been waiting the longest for treatment will be offered the chance to travel to a different hospital to be seen sooner.

As of today, patients who have been waiting over 40 weeks and do not have an appointment scheduled within the next eight weeks will be contacted by their NHS trust or independent sector provider.

As part of the NHS’ elective recovery plan, introduced in February 2022, to boost capacity and give power to patients, up to 400,000 eligible patients will be sent offers to submit their details for NHS teams to identify whether alternative hospital arrangements can be determined.

The details to submit will include how far eligible patients are willing to travel, including 50 miles, 100 miles or nationally.

Additionally, to determine whether the NHS or independent sector providers elsewhere in the country can take on their care, some patients’ requests will be uploaded to the NHS’ innovative hospital matching platform, the Digital Mutual Aid System.

Within eight weeks, if no alternative hospital has been determined, the patient will continue with their current provider and keep their position on the waiting list.

So far, the NHS has treated over 87,000 people in August by recovering elective services, an increase compared to August 2019, with help from surgical hubs, community diagnostic centres, as well as robots and artificial intelligence to speed up surgery and treatments.

This next step “follows on from the roll out of community diagnostic centres, surgical hubs and virtual wards to unlock capacity in the NHS,” said Steve Barclays, health and social care secretary.

Amanda Pritchard, NHS chief executive, said: “This new step to offer NHS patients who have been waiting the longest the opportunity to consider travelling for treatment is just another example of how we are introducing new approaches to reduce how long patients wait while improving the choice and control they have over their own care.”