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<p>The commitment that ‘all patients who have operations cancelled, on or after the
day of admission (including the day of surgery), for non-clinical reasons to be offered
another binding date within 28 days, or the patient’s treatment to be funded at the
time and hospital of the patient’s choice’ is included as a pledge in the Handbook
to the NHS Constitution. A copy is attached.</p><p> </p><p>Every quarter, NHS England
publishes the number of operations cancelled at the ‘last minute’ for non-clinical
reasons. A last minute cancellation is defined as ‘when a patient’s operation is cancelled
by the hospital on or after the day of admission (including the day of surgery) for
non-clinical reasons’. The financial sanction for not meeting the pledge in 2016-17
is non-payment of costs associated with cancellation and non-payment or reimbursement
(as applicable) of the re-scheduled episode of care.</p><p> </p><p>Every month, NHS
England also publishes data on urgent operations that are cancelled by the trust for
non-medical reasons, including those cancelled for a second or subsequent time. This
includes all urgent operations cancelled, not just those cancelled at the last minute.
Although there is no pledge for cancelled urgent operations, NHS England has set a
National Quality Requirement that no urgent operation should be cancelled for a second
time, and the NHS Standard Contract provides for a financial sanction of £5,000 per
incidence.</p>
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