29 July 2023 , 18:36
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More than 7,300 people are still waiting longer than 18 months for NHS treatment, despite Rishi Sunak claiming to have “virtually eliminated” long delays. The Prime Minister has repeatedly claimed victory on the health service’s target for clearing backlogs - including at last week’s Prime Minister’s Questions.
He told Labour ’s Keir Starmer that if he “actually looked at what was happening, he would see that earlier this year our plans were beginning to work…virtually eliminating the number of people waiting one and half years for treatment.” The health service has made significant progress towards that goal, reducing the figure from 125,000 at the peak of the pandemic in 2021.
But Tory Health Minister Will Quince admitted this week that 7,363 had still been waiting more than 18 months for treatment. Shadow Health Secretary Wes Streeting said: “Yet again, the Tories have overpromised and underdelivered. The basic promise of the NHS - that it will be there for us when we need it – has been broken.”
A Department for Health and Social Care (DHSC) spokesperson insisted 7,363 people counted as “virtually” none for the purposes of this target. They said some of them had chosen to wait longer, some had particularly complex procedures - but were unable to say how many.
And before the pandemic, the number waiting for 18 months - even when choice and complexity were included - was so small that the NHS didn’t routinely publish the data. They grouped it in with all patients waiting more than a year - which was only 1,154 in March 2019 - less than a sixth of the 18-month wait figure today.
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Mr Streeting said: “If the Tories think thousands of patients waiting for care counts as meeting their target, then they've given up on governing. The Conservatives need to step aside and let Labour rescue the NHS from this crisis.”
He added: “Labour government will train the staff needed to treat patients on time again, and reform the service to make it fit for the future.”
Ben Jezka, 30, from Leicester, suffers from an autoimmune disease and has been waiting for a new liver for more than a year. It’s a terrible rollercoaster with lots of ups and downs,” he said. “Sometimes you find yourself staring at the phone waiting for a call and, when it finally rings, your heart jumps. There isn’t much support on the mental health side of things and you almost feel like you don’t really have a purpose.”
The DHSC spokesperson said: “The most recent NHS England figures showed that on 2 July there were 7,363 patients waiting over 18 months, a reduction of over 94% from the peak of 125,000 in September 2021. As of 2 July, 31 out of the total 136 NHS England trusts have no patients waiting 18 months or more, whilst a further 83 have fewer than 100 remaining.”