NHS patients wait an average 7 weeks for tests

LONDON, July 13 (Reuters) Patients are waiting an average of seven weeks for common diagnostic tests such as scans at NHS hospitals in England, the Department of Health said.

Three quarters of tests are carried out within 13 weeks, with non-emergency patients waiting an average of 7-1/2 weeks for an MRI scan and 2-1/2 weeks for a CT scan.

The data, published for the first time, will be recorded every month for 15 of the most common diagnostic tests carried out in the NHS.

The health service carries out 12 million tests a week.

By April 2007 the government wants to reduce the maximum waiting time for all tests to 13 weeks.

It said yesterday's data would help it achieve its ambitious target of reducing the wait from seeing a family doctor to getting treatment to 18 weeks by 2008.

''Only five years ago, it was not uncommon to wait up to 18 months for an operation -- and that did not even include the outpatient and diagnostic assessment,'' said Health Minister Andy Burnham.

''The service has eradicated the long waiting times that patients have historically had to face.'' Liberal Democrat health spokesman Steve Webb told BBC television that 13 weeks -- or three months --- was still a long time for patients to wait for test results.

And he said he was sceptical the health service could meet the 18-week treatment target.

''It's easy to get a short-term fix, to buy in lots of scans and get the list down as a temporary factor. But in the long term keeping them down is going to be very hard as NHS finances get squeezed in a year or two's time.

Reuters MQA DB0925