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Cancelled elective operations and 28-day breaches in the NHS in England: an interrupted time series analysis of the 2002 penalty policy, 2008 recession, and COVID-19 pandemic (1994–2023).
Quinn L. The Lancet Regional Health – Europe 2025;:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lanepe.2025.101368.
[The 2002 policy of financial penalties for hospitals failing to provide elective operations within 28 days of last-minute cancellations effectively reduced breaches but could not be maintained after the COVID-19 pandemic, when breach rates reached high levels, especially hospitals with A&E departments that could not protect elective beds. Effective targets require sufficient resource capacity and demand management, ignoring such constraints can lead to self-defeating, unjust policies.]
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