In the run-up to the next general election the Government is using improved cataract operation figures to beat the drum on the contentious subject of the health service.
A new Department of Health paper on delivering fast-track surgery to patients via a mixture of treatment centres and mobile units has stated that diagnosis and procedure times have been streamlined.
Nevertheless, medical leaders claim the policy allows the centres, some which are independently run, to 'cherry pick' the easier and profitable procedures, and opposition parties have claimed the Government is tinkering with true NHS costs.
In the Independent Sector Treatment Centre programme, each of the mobile cataract units is performing an average of 39 cataract removals per day, which compares favourably to the five cataract removals per provider per day in 2002-03.
Health secretary John Reid confirmed that the number of treatment centres overall would rise from the current number of 29 to 80 by the end of the year.
'In December the 10,000th ophthalmology patient was treated,' he said. 'There are significant benefits for patients, including an improved patient experience and more streamlined service.'
However, both the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats remain unimpressed.
Shadow health secretary Andrew Lansley said: 'Yet again Labour are spinning the truth and misrepresenting facts.
'I am concerned that John Reid's support of treatment centres has everything to do with meeting political targets and nothing to do with putting the needs of patients first.
'Patients, not politicians, should be able to choose if they receive care in a treatment centre and Blair's Government shouldn't interfere. Conservatives would give the forgotten majority control over their own lives. Control to choose the health service that their taxes pay for.'
And Lib Dem health shadow health secretary Paul Burstow said: 'The test for treatment centres is whether they increase the NHS ability to treat more people. If the centres simply divert operations from existing NHS facilities and increase costs, they will have failed.'
He said that the centres must not 'cream off' the easy and profitable cases and leave the NHS to pick up the bill for the more complex, high cost operations.
'Patients with more complex conditions must not be left at the back of the queue,' he said.
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