8 weeks seems like a long wait time to me though:

On average, admitted patients waited 7.9 weeks for treatment in March 2011, compared to eight weeks in March 2010. For outpatients it is just 3.7 weeks, compared to 3.8 weeks in 2010."


>From the article
>
>A Department of Health spokesperson said: 'Waiting times go up and they go down, but this data shows that waiting times remain broadly stable.'
>
>>>>Government run health care works in other countries. Why are we supposed to be different?
>>>>
>>>>Actually, government run health care does not work in the rest of the world. It is health care rationing. Andy knows - he lived with it most of his life. When he was in agony with a knee cap that had slipped, if he had not had private health insurance, he would have been put on a waiting list and would have had to spend 1 - 2 years in great pain waiting for his surgery because it was not life-threatening.
>>>>
>>>>And I agree. Why should we be any different?
>>>
>>>Waiting times are nowhere near that now.
>>
>>I honestly do not know how long the waits were back whenever, what I do know is that they are rising. Again.
>>http://pulsetoday.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=35&storycode=4129557&c=2
>>
>>>You are probably looking back to the period of the last Tory government when they where only too happy to underinvest in public services so the rich could reap the economic miracle of Thatcherism and North Sea Oil.
>>>
>>>BTW I hope ex pat Andy has repaid the cost of any training he may have had in the UK at public expense. As he is no longer paying tax here he must owe quite a lot..