Is there really a weekend effect in UK healthcare

[Hope]

An interesting report on this morning's BBC Breakfast programme.  I haven't been able to find anything online - but the item was on the 7am news slot - so about 7.05 if you choose to look via iPlayer.

Folk at Oxford University have done a survey that suggests that some of th problem is to do with poor data collection.  For instance, of 1650-odd patients apparently admitted following a stroke, some 600 were later shown to have been admitted for routine - weekday - check-ups and procedures. 

Jeremy Hunt has been accused of misrepresenting the situation over this so-called weekend effect.  Could it simply be that he, and many others in the healthcare field, have simply been being given incorrect data in the first place?

[Udayana]

Sorry Hope,
Don't see how it is possible for anyone to comment without knowing the details of the study. Was the data used by the earlier studies invalid? Why? Why was flawed data used? How do the errors affect the calculations?

[L.A.]

An interesting report on this morning's BBC Breakfast programme.  I haven't been able to find anything online - but the item was on the 7am news slot - so about 7.05 if you choose to look via iPlayer.

Folk at Oxford University have done a survey that suggests that some of th problem is to do with poor data collection.  For instance, of 1650-odd patients apparently admitted following a stroke, some 600 were later shown to have been admitted for routine - weekday - check-ups and procedures. 

Jeremy Hunt has been accused of misrepresenting the situation over this so-called weekend effect.  Could it simply be that he, and many others in the healthcare field, have simply been being given incorrect data in the first place?

This is one of the few sensible, impartial analysis's on the subject:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02sgwkb#play

[Hope]

Sorry Hope,
Don't see how it is possible for anyone to comment without knowing the details of the study. Was the data used by the earlier studies invalid? Why? Why was flawed data used? How do the errors affect the calculations?

It appears that the data was mis-recorded - diagnoses were wrongly recorded.  That would mean that researchers using the studies based on it were making incorrect  -  http://medicalxpress.com/news/2016-05-weekend-effect-coding.html

[Aruntraveller]

There are other reasons why any data on this is misleading. For starters at weekends there is a tendency to admit more seriously ill people so the figures can look higher than they actually are. Secondly admissions from Emergency Departments are higher at weekends because they are surprise, surprise, busier with all sorts of stupid mayhem which is more life threatening than the average attendances on weekdays at ED. It is therefore no surprise that the death rate may appear to be higher.

THAT DOES NOT EQUATE TO IT BEING MORE DANGEROUS FOR YOU BEING ADMITTED WITH A BROKEN ARM AT THE WEEKEND - I WOULD BET, IN FACT I KNOW, THAT YOUR CHANCES FOR SURVIVAL ARE WITHIN THE STATISTICAL NORM FOR SUCH INJURIES.

HUNT IS PLAYING WITH FIGURES FOR HIS OWN AGENDA. THE MAN IS A BASTARD.

[Hope]

There are other reasons why any data on this is misleading. For starters at weekends there is a tendency to admit more seriously ill people so the figures can look higher than they actually are. Secondly admissions from Emergency Departments are higher at weekends because they are surprise, surprise, busier with all sorts of stupid mayhem which is more life threatening than the average attendances on weekdays at ED. It is therefore no surprise that the death rate may appear to be higher.

THAT DOES NOT EQUATE TO IT BEING MORE DANGEROUS FOR YOU BEING ADMITTED WITH A BROKEN ARM AT THE WEEKEND - I WOULD BET, IN FACT I KNOW, THAT YOUR CHANCES FOR SURVIVAL ARE WITHIN THE STATISTICAL NORM FOR SUCH INJURIES.

HUNT IS PLAYING WITH FIGURES FOR HIS OWN AGENDA. THE MAN IS A BASTARD.

Whereas I'd suggest that groups from the BMA to the Government, from the medical unions to the opposition have been being fed with inaccurate statistics for years and - as tends to be the case - built flawed policies on that material.  Remember that just about everyone, junior doctors included, have agreed with the concept of the weekend effect.  The disagreement has been over the degree of effect.

[Aruntraveller]

Remember that just about everyone, junior doctors included, have agreed with the concept of the weekend effect.

Simply wrong. They haven't.

Indeed the wee Hunt's first weekend calculations (or as I prefer to call them illiterate doodles) included strangely Fridays and Mondays.

There have been several reports from reputable bodies pointing out the errors within the assumptions made by Hunt on this matter all of them coming to the conclusion that there is not a weekend effect in the way that he tried to present it. Yes people who go into hospital at weekends are more likely to die - but due to the nature of their illness not because of any lack of healthcare.

I really can't be bothered to post more than one link but a simple google will provide you with enough evidence to disprove your claim.

https://reportuk.org/2016/03/03/jeremy-hunts-6000-nhs-weekend-deaths-claim-rubbished-by-british-medical-journal/

[Hope]

Simply wrong. They haven't.

Indeed the wee Hunt's first weekend calculations (or as I prefer to call them illiterate doodles) included strangely Fridays and Mondays.

There have been several reports from reputable bodies pointing out the errors within the assumptions made by Hunt on this matter all of them coming to the conclusion that there is not a weekend effect in the way that he tried to present it. Yes people who go into hospital at weekends are more likely to die - but due to the nature of their illness not because of any lack of healthcare.

I really can't be bothered to post more than one link but a simple google will provide you with enough evidence to disprove your claim.

https://reportuk.org/2016/03/03/jeremy-hunts-6000-nhs-weekend-deaths-claim-rubbished-by-british-medical-journal/

But the Oxford University study suggest that there aren't that many more deaths at the weekends, not just that they occur for different reasons.  The other thing is why would people be more likely to be suffering more serious conditions at the weekend as opposed to during the week (that said, both my health issues of 2015 occurred either at the end of the week - or over the weekend ; my angina attack on a Friday morning, but I wasn't admitted until late Friday night because I didn't realise that I'd had the attack(!!), and my stroke occurred in the early hours of a Saturday).

[Aruntraveller]

We aren't suffering more serious conditions at weekends but in A & E hospitals there are more serious injuries at weekends - which then knocks on to the admissions made for other reasons so it becomes a block that acts to allow only the more serious cases from other illnesses to be admitted.

Frankly the whole emphasis on Doctors working in hospitals at weekends is a complete and utter red herring.

It ignores the fact that many, many other professionals are involved in the care of patients all of whom have to and do work weekends. We do have 7 day working in the NHS already. DO you think hospitals are staffed by magical medical fairies at weekends?

If I sound pissed off by this it's because I have spent the last week trying to organise the next quarters (Jul - Sep) rota for weekends for staff in our department. On a budget that does not cover the payments we have to make to staff.

Hunt is trying to throw up a smokescreen to cover up the cuts (and make no mistake they are cuts) in health and social care.

[Hope]

If he's hiding any cuts, its cuts in Governmental thinking!     We need a single, joined up health and social care provision rather than two separate provisions run by very different bodies.

[Aruntraveller]

If he's hiding any cuts, its cuts in Governmental thinking!     We need a single, joined up health and social care provision rather than two separate provisions run by very different bodies.

I couldn't agree more - it is absolutely pathetic.