Rishi Sunak pledged in January that his government would cut waiting lists by 2024 — but the latest stats show the PM is failing to meet his target: the NHS waiting list has hit a record high of 7.8 million waits, according to figures released this morning. 6.5 million patients are languishing on lists, with around 15 per cent waiting for more than one thing.
The bad news for patients – and for the Prime Minister – is that things are likely to get worse before they get better. October has been the busiest month for A&E attendance so far this year with over 2.2 million people showing up at emergency departments for treatment. This figure is set to grow as winter approaches and national medical director Stephen Powis has been forced to admit that healthcare workers are expecting to face a ‘challenging winter in the health service’. The NHS is already having to take additional measures to cope with an increasing patient load, including the introduction of care ‘traffic control’ centres to speed up discharge, additional ambulance hours and extra beds. And the number of patients receiving treatment in the NHS has increased markedly since before the pandemic, too. In September of this year, there were over 25,000 more elective appointments and procedures carried out compared with the same month in 2019.
Some patients have had to wait an unacceptable length of time for appointments and procedures: just under 400,000 patients have waited a year for treatment, while over 100,000 patients have been left waiting for 65 weeks to receive care. But the crisis in the NHS isn’t only confined to hospitals: ambulance services – which also faced their busiest month this year in October – are still facing major delays. Category 2 ambulances (ambulances that attend the second most serious incidents) are taking more than 40 minutes to reach patients.
It’s bleak news as winter approaches. Powis has urged patients to take preventive measures, reminding people to get their flu and Covid vaccinations and using services like NHS 111 to take the strain off the NHS. Today’s figures are a poor indictment of the Tories’ handling of health service and a concern for patients who are increasingly losing faith in the NHS.
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