Hunt announces funding to eliminate 12-month waiting lists

The Daily Mirror reports that Jeremy Hunt has announced a new funding package of £250 million to eliminate waits for treatment of longer than 12 months, in a drive that would see 100,000 additional treatments performed over the summer. The focus on those waiting long will mean that the NHS will miss its 18-week waiting time target, although Hunt said that this will happen in a “managed way”, with the target returning in the beginning of 2015. The drive will include a casework review of every patient waiting for or being close to wait for 52 weeks to ensure they are treated as priorities, unless clinical concerns are present.