ABSTRACT
The hypothesis that contrasts in the waiting times of fund-holding and non fund-holding patients might have been a consequence of differences in case mix was advanced, albeit very briefly, in the letters pages of the British Medical Journal (see Black, 1998). It is therefore necessary to respond to this speculation. As such, the focus of this chapter is an investigation into the effect of the surgical case mix on the waiting times of both the fund holding and non fund-holding populations. It will demonstrate whether sufficient discrepancies existed in the assortment of the range of operations given to each group of patients, and the waits applicable to them, to explain the contrasts in their waiting times.
