The subsequent referral is made several weeks later, which adds even more time to the existing wait for his rheumatology outpatient appointment.
Hospital admissions at weekends are different – they rarely come from outpatient clinics, which are held on weekdays: most are emergency admissions and tend to be more serious.
Financial assistance through Medicare for women to attend one of the hospital providers as an outpatient was a potential solution, he said, as was expanding the service to hospitals in Gove, Katherine and Tennant Creek, where resuscitation facilities were in place.
As a result, the figures omit all those who have not come forward, have not been diagnosed, are receiving private treatment or are being treated as an outpatient or in the community.
But few routine services, such as planned surgery, outpatient clinics and GP visits, are available at weekends.
Then Tom's off to see his next patient, an outpatient this time; someone he's been working with for a while now, on a full cognitive behavioural therapy programme.
But he may also mean that patients will in future be able to have their check-up or outpatient appointment on a Saturday or Sunday, to save them taking time off work during the week.
The nurse who brought her patient's sister to A&E after a busy afternoon outpatient clinic, because they needed support to get there.
It can involve everything running outpatient appointments and minor surgery in the community to improving the support and rehabilitation available to patients when they are discharged from hospital.
And in fact the cost of a single extra outpatient appointment at hospital would be more expensive than the £200 saved.
Some introduced market-based reforms such as competition between clinics and linking providers' fees to health outcomes; others merged or closed hospitals and beefed up cheaper outpatient care.Reasonable though some of these policies sound, their inevitable effect was to cut health coverage, says Martin McKee of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
