NHS waiting lists in England rise for first time in seven months – as issue becomes general election battleground

Published

3 months ago

June 13, 2024

admin

The number of people waiting for routine hospital treatment in England has risen for the first time in seven months, new figures show.

An estimated 6.33 million patients were waiting for 7.57 million treatments to be carried out at the end of April, NHS England data shows.

This is up from 6.29 million patients and 7.54 million treatments at the end of March.

NHS waiting lists have become a key focus of the general election campaign.

Latest general election updates

Rishi Sunak vowed to tackle the high numbers in January 2023, when it stood at 7.21 million treatments.

On Wednesday night, Rishi Sunak claimed during Sky News’ Battle For Number 10 programme that NHS waiting lists are “coming down”.

But he admitted: “We’ve not made as much progress on cutting waiting lists as I would have liked.”

He was booed by the audience, which represented a mix of voters, after he said junior doctors strikes have had an impact on waiting lists.

The waiting list hit a record high in September 2023, with 6.5 million patients waiting for 7.77 million treatments.

Sir Keir Starmer vowed to bring down waiting lists by creating 40,000 new appointments per week, as one of the first things a Labour government would do.

Tim Gardner, assistant director of policy at thinktank The Health Foundation, said: “With both Labour and the Conservatives promising big improvements in NHS waiting times, today’s figures are a stark reminder of the scale of the challenge facing the next government.”

He added that while there has been “some progress” in recent months “there is still a huge mountain to climb”.

? Tap here to follow Politics at Jack at Sam’s wherever you get your podcasts ?

Read more:
The MPs standing down
Key seats to watch

Lib Dem health spokeswoman Daisy Cooper called on Mr Sunak “to apologise to the public for his failure to get NHS waiting lists down instead of ducking responsibility”.

“The prime minister getting booed by the public over soaring waiting lists last night shows just how angry people are with his record of failure,” she added.

Shadow health secretary Wes Streeting said: “This has blown a hole in Rishi Sunak’s claim that the NHS has turned a corner.”

He said the PM “can’t blame NHS staff… the blame lies solely with the Conservatives”.

The newest data on England also found:

5,013 patients in England had been waiting more than 18 months to start routine treatment at the end of April, up from 4,770 in March
This is despite the government and NHS England pledging to end all waits of more than 18 months by April last year, excluding exceptionally complex cases or patients who choose to wait longer
A total of 50,397 patients had been waiting more than 65 weeks to begin treatment at the end of April, compared with 48,968 in March
The target to eliminate all waits over 65 weeks was previously March 2024 but has been moved to September this year
302,589 people had been waiting more than 52 weeks to start routine hospital treatment at the end of April, down from 309,300 at the end of March
The target is to eliminate all waits of more than a year by March 2025
Those waiting more than 12 hours in A&E from a decision to admit to being admitted was 42,555 in May, up slightly from 42,078 in April
The number waiting at least four hours from the decision to admit to admission also increased, from 134,344 in April to 138,770 in May
74% of patients were seen within four hours in A&Es last month, down from 74.4% in April
A target of March this year was made for 76% of patients to attend A&E to be admitted, transferred or discharged within four hours
73.5% of patients urgently referred for suspected cancer in April were diagnosed or had cancer ruled out within 28 days, down from 77.3% in March – below the 75% target
GPs made 260,108 urgent cancer referalls in April, up from 254,594 in March, and up year on year from 218,324 in April 2023
Patients waiting no longer than 62 days in April from an urgent suspected cancer referral or consultant upgrade to their first definitive treatment for cancer was 66.6%, down from 68.7% in March – the target is 85%

Politics

Bank of Canada just says no to retail CBDC in reshuffling of priorities

Published

8 hours ago

September 20, 2024

admin

Bank of Canada just says no to retail CBDC in reshuffling of priorities

Regulating and speeding up payments without a CBDC are more important to the Canadian central bank.

Politics

SEC approves options for BlackRock’s spot Bitcoin ETF

Published

8 hours ago

September 20, 2024

admin

<div>SEC approves options for BlackRock's spot Bitcoin ETF</div>

The SEC notice seemed to be an industry first after the commission approved the listing and trading of spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds on US exchanges in January.

Politics

Farage: It’s possible I could become PM

Published

9 hours ago

September 20, 2024

admin

Nigel Farage has spoken about his aspirations as Reform UK party leader and insists he could become prime minister.

He told Sky’s political correspondent Darren McCaffrey the prospect of taking over at Number 10 at some point “may not be probable, but it’s certainly possible”.

In an interview on the sidelines of the Reform UK annual conference in Birmingham, he also described his intention to change the party and make it more democratic.

“I don’t want it to be a one man party. Look, this is not a presidential system. If it was, I might think differently about it. But no, it’s not. We have to be far more broadly based,” he said.

He also accepted there were issues with how the party was perceived by some during the general election.

“We had a problem,” he admitted. “Those that wished us harm use the racist word. And we had candidates who genuinely were.”

Earlier the party leader and Clacton MP gave his keynote speech at the conference, explaining how they intend to win even more seats at the next general election.

He also called out the prime minister for accepting free gifts and mocked the candidates in the Tory leadership race.

But he turned to more serious points, too – promising that Reform UK will “be vetting candidates rigorously at all levels” in future.

Addressing crowds in Birmingham, Mr Farage said the party has not got “time” or “room” for “a few extremists to wreck the work of a party that now has 80,000 members”.

Farage says Reform UK needs to ‘grow up’

By Darren McCaffrey, political correspondent in Birmingham

Reform and Nigel Farage can hardly believe their success.

Perhaps unsurprising, given they received over four million votes and now have five MPs.

But today this is a party that claims it has bigger ambitions – that it’s fighting for power.

Having taken millions of votes from the Conservatives, the party thinks it can do so with Labour voters too.

Reform finished second in 98 constituencies, 89 of them are Labour seats.

But it is a big ask, not least of all because it is a party still dominated by its controversial leader and primarily by one majority issue – migration.

Nigel Farage says the party needs to grow up and professionalise if it has a chance of further success.

This is undoubtedly true but if Reform is going to carry on celebrating, they know it also has to broaden its policy appeal beyond the overwhelming concern of its members.

“The infant that Reform UK was has been growing up,” he said in his speech and pointed towards the success of the Liberal Democrats at the general election.

He told delegates his party has to “model ourselves on the Liberal Democrats” which secured 72 seats on a smaller popular vote share than Reform UK.

He said: “The Liberal Democrats put literature and leaflets through doors repeatedly in their target areas, and despite the fact they haven’t got any policies at all. In fact, the whole thing’s really rather vacuous, isn’t it? But they manage with a vote much lower than ours to win 72 seats in parliament.”

Reform won more than four million votes in July, and 14% of the vote share – more than the Lib Dems.