NHS to divert thousands more patients away from hospitals to slash waiting lists

In their latest efforts to cut eye-watering NHS waiting lists the government is expanding a scheme which diverts patients from hospital treatment where they could be more efficiently treated directly by GPs or referred through GPs to local care services.  

The “Advice and Guidance” scheme, first announced in January, attempts to increase communication between local GPs and hospital specialists, allowing family doctors to seek expert advice and then offer treatments themselves or through appropriate community care, preventing their patients from having to join lengthy queues for hospital treatment.   

GP practices can now claim for payments for every request raised via the scheme, with £80 million in new funding introduced to support this extension, part of the October budget’s £26 million cash injection for the Health Service.

The government is hoping this initiative can help to divert up to 2 million patients from elective waiting lists by March 2026, rising from the 660,000 diversions made between July and December 2024.  

Dr Amanda Doyle, NHS national director for primary care and community services, has celebrated the move:

“Expanding the service with this new funding will help even more patients access the right support, closer to home while reducing unnecessary waits for hospital care.” 

Tim Gardner, assistant director of policy at the Health Foundation think tank, welcomed the policy when it was first introduced at the start of the year, however he stressed how difficult the government’s targets will be to reach, especially given the difficult economic outlook. 

Quoted in the Guardian, he said “We should be under no illusions about just how stretching the targets are in this plan.” 

He said that meeting the government’s ambitions “would require improvements of a comparable scale to those achieved by the last Labour government in the 2000s, but in more difficult circumstances and with far lower levels of funding increases.” 

A practical example of patients who could benefit from the scheme include menopausal women seeking advice on using hormone replacement therapy (HRT) where, rather than joining the 580,000 strong queue for gynaecological care, they can instead be referred to their area’s women’s health hub. Alternatively, those suffering irritable bowel syndrome could receive support from dieticians rather than join the 400,000 wating for support for digestive conditions.   

According to the latest government data, 30% of all patients with ear, nose and throat issues referred to hospitals – burdened with a waiting list of 634,000 – have conditions which could be treated away from hospitals, such as tinnitus, ear-wax removal and simple ear infections.

Ruth Rankine, director of primary care at the NHS Confederation, believes the Advice and Guidance initiative can improve patient experience within the NHS:

“If implemented effectively, it can support improved patient care… giving the patient and their GP more control over their treatment options and supports care closer to home.”

She acknowledged that “hospital treatment isn’t the best option for many conditions” and supports the government’s greater investment “in primary and community services”. 

According to the latest NHS data, 6.25 million patients are wating for treatment in England alone, with only 58.9% being treated within 18 weeks. The government hopes to raise this figure to 92% by the end of the parliament.