One in seven people now on NHS waiting lists, new figures show

The number of people waiting for NHS treatments has risen to another record high, with around one in seven people in England now waiting for routine appointments, figures released yesterday show.
Kit Sandeman
By Kit Sandeman
Published 15th Sep 2023, 06:00 BST

As well as a gradual rise in the number of people on the overall list – 7.7 million, there was a sharper rise in the number of people waiting a year or longer – 389,000.

It comes after the Prime Minister made cutting waiting lists one of his five priorities, saying in January that “lists will fall and people will get the care they need more quickly”.

The waiting list for treatment has been growing for much of the last decade, passing three million in 2014, four million in 2017, five million in 2021 and seven million in 2022.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak meets staff in the Jubilee Suite during a visit to the North Devon District Hospital in Barnstaple.Prime Minister Rishi Sunak meets staff in the Jubilee Suite during a visit to the North Devon District Hospital in Barnstaple.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak meets staff in the Jubilee Suite during a visit to the North Devon District Hospital in Barnstaple.

In February 2020, the last full month before the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, the waiting list stood at 4.57 million.

Since then, the list has increased by just over three million, to 7.68 million as of July this year – the latest monthly figures just released by NHS England show.

All health services expect to be busier in winter than in summer, so ministers would have hoped to have made more headway with reducing waiting lists over what is supposed to be the quieter season.

The figures came as the Government announced an additional £200 million to “boost winter capacity”, described by shadow health secretary Wes Streeting as a sticking plaster.

Ongoing industrial action - which shows more signs of escalation than easement with coordinated strikes between consultants and junior doctors next week - also makes further progress towards one of the Prime Minister’s five key pledges less likely.

While the overall trends in appointment waiting times are up, when it comes to cancer, the picture is mixed, with a rise in the number of urgent cancer referrals made by GPs to 263,696 in July, up 1 per cent on 261,006 in June and up 10 per cent year-on-year from 239,739 in July 2022.

The proportion of cancer patients who saw a specialist within two weeks of being referred urgently by their GP fell from 80.5 per cent in June to 77.5 per cent in July, remaining below the target of 93 per cent.

The number of patients waiting longer than 62 days since an urgent GP referral for suspected cancer was down slightly, the data further showed.

Some 62.6 per cent of cancer patients who had their first treatment in July after an urgent GP referral had waited less than two months, up from 59.2 per cent in June.

The target is 85 per cent and will remain one of the key cancer measures following the streamlining of performance standards in October.

Meanwhile, 74.1 per cent of patients urgently referred for suspected cancer were diagnosed or had cancer ruled out within 28 days, up from 73.5 per cent the previous month.

The target is 75 per cent and this will also remain one of the performance standards beyond October.