We have unprecedented numbers of patients on elective waitlists, with many waiting longer for treatment than ever before. It would be useful to more fully understand the consequences of long waits for treatments, on: the patient, the health and care system, the wider economy and society.
Initial work, using BNSSG data, has investigated the effects on NHS care settings, such as primary, secondary, community and mental health services.
(https://bmchealthservres.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12913-024-1...).
This essentially involved a ‘case-control’ study, in which the healthcare activity of the ‘case’ group (those on a waitlist) was compared to the ‘control’ group (those not on a waitlist). Results showed an increase in activity in many NHS care settings, indicating additional resources to manage these patients up to the point of treatment, and possible harms for the patient.
The ALSPAC data has a greater coverage of other variables, aside from NHS care activity.