Government plans to appoint hundreds of new hospital consultants are unlikely to make patient waiting lists shrink. More resources will only create more demand and open "bottomless pits" that will absorb all resources, according to a study.
Proposals which included hiring hundreds of consultants were announced on Tuesday by the Minister for Health and Children, Mr Martin. Success ive governments have invested £122.7 million since 1993 to reduce the numbers waiting for treatment. Despite some improvements the lists still include almost 30,000 people.
Yet waiting lists are "likely to be an essential symptom of an efficient healthcare service," according to Dr D.P. Smethurst and Dr H.C. Williams of Queens Medical Centre, University Hospital Nottingham. And the lists will persist no matter how many doctors and how much money are thrown at them.
The two publish a mathematical analysis of waiting-list numbers this morning in the journal Nature. They found that waiting lists were "subject to the power laws of complexity theory."
"Power laws are used to describe the behaviour of systems that are semi-chaotic such as sandpile avalanches, forest fires and disease epidemics," they explained.
"Such systems endure intervention, like adding more sand to the pile, fighting the fire or introducing healthcare initiatives to shorten waiting lists, with minimal alteration to their external appearance . . .
"This is because anything designed to make an impact on such a complex system is dissipated throughout the network of connected participants, so it appears to have a self-regulating life of its own."
Changing resource levels also changes patient demand, they report. For every patient who asks a GP for a consultant referral "there are many more who do not". But they will fill gaps when there are more doctors available or access to them is easier.
