Hospital waiting lists and allocation of additional resources

Waiting lists for elective surgery are perceived to be a problem leading to calls for the allocation of additional resources. There is evidence that waiting lists are too inaccurate to be useful as a management tool. It is not possible to conclude from the data currently collected that the existence or size of a waiting list means that timely and appropriate care is not delivered. The nature of systems that would result in accurate and meaningful data are explored in this paper using soft system methodology.