Editing Socialized medicine (section)

===Political interference and targeting===
In the UK, where government employees or government-employed sub-contractors deliver most health care, political interference is quite hard to discern. Most supply-side decisions are in practice under the control of medical practitioners and of boards comprising the medical profession. There is some antipathy towards the target-setting by politicians in the UK. Even the NICE criteria for public funding of medical treatments were never set by politicians. Nevertheless, politicians have set targets, for instance to reduce waiting times and to improve choice.  Academics have pointed out that the claims of success of the targeting are statistically flawed.<ref>
{{cite press release |url=http://www.cass.city.ac.uk/press/press_release_pdfs/A&E%20waiting%20targets%20-%20Les%20Mayhew.pdf |publisher=Cass Business School |title=Academics challenge A&E waiting times |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080910021448/http://www.cass.city.ac.uk/press/press_release_pdfs/A%26E%20waiting%20targets%20-%20Les%20Mayhew.pdf |archive-date=September 10, 2008 |url-status=dead}}</ref>

The veracity and significance of the claims of targeting interfering with clinical priorities are often hard to judge. For example, some UK ambulance crews have complained that hospitals would deliberately leave patients with ambulance crews to prevent an accident and emergency department (A&E, or emergency room) target-time for treatment from starting to run. The Department of Health vehemently denied the claim, because the A&E time begins when the ambulance arrives at the hospital and not after the handover. It defended the A&E target by pointing out that the percentage of people waiting four hours or more in A&E had dropped from just under 25% in 2004 to less than 2% in 2008.<ref>
{{cite news |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7249514.stm |website=BBC News |title=Anger at "patient stacking" claim |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080517174557/http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7249514.stm |archive-date=May 17, 2008 |url-status=live}}</ref> The original ''Observer'' article reported that in London, 14,700 ambulance turnarounds were longer than an hour and 332 were more than two hours when the target turnaround time is 15 minutes.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.theguardian.com/society/2008/feb/17/health.nhs1 |title=Scandal of patients left for hours outside A&E |newspaper=[[The Observer]] |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160718130903/https://www.theguardian.com/society/2008/feb/17/health.nhs1 |archive-date=July 18, 2016 |url-status=live}}</ref> However, in the context of the total number of emergency ambulance attendances by the [[London Ambulance Service]] each year (approximately 865,000),<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.londonambulance.nhs.uk/publications/areport/London%20Ambulance%20Service%20AR%2006-07.pdf |title=Annual Report 2006/07 |website=London Ambulance Service, NHS |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081029031548/http://www.londonambulance.nhs.uk/publications/areport/London%20Ambulance%20Service%20AR%2006-07.pdf |archive-date=October 29, 2008 |url-status=dead}}</ref> these represent just 1.6% and 0.03% of all ambulance calls. The proportion of these attributable to patients left with ambulance crews is not recorded. At least one junior doctor has complained that the four-hour A&E target is too high and leads to unwarranted actions that are not in the best interests of patients.<ref>{{Cite news | url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4631793.stm | work=BBC News | title=Minister blasted over A&E target | date=June 28, 2005 | access-date=May 23, 2010 | first=Nick | last=Triggle | url-status=live | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071030192743/http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4631793.stm | archive-date=October 30, 2007 }}</ref>

Political targeting of waiting-times in Britain has had dramatic effects. The [[National Health Service]] reports that the median admission wait-time for elective inpatient treatment (non-urgent hospital treatment) in England at the end of August 2007, was just under 6 weeks, and 87.5% of patients were admitted within 13 weeks. Reported waiting times in England also overstate the true waiting-time. This is because the clock starts ticking when the patient has been referred to a specialist by the GP and it only stops when the medical procedure is completed. The 18-week maximum waiting period target thus includes all the time taken for the patient to attend the first appointment with the specialist, time for any tests called for by the specialist to determine precisely the root of the patient's problem and the best way to treat it. It excludes time for any intervening steps deemed necessary prior to treatment, such as recovery from some other illness or the losing of excessive weight.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.18weeks.nhs.uk/Content.aspx?path=/What-is-18-weeks/patient |title=I'm a patient... |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081112112634/http://www.18weeks.nhs.uk/Content.aspx?path=%2FWhat-is-18-weeks%2Fpatient |archive-date=November 12, 2008 |url-status=dead |website=18 week NHS target}}</ref>