Jump to content
  • articles
    9,899
  • comments
    84
  • views
    12,583,831

Contributors to this article

About this News

Articles in the news

NHS waiting times for routine hospital treatment hits another new record high

The number of people in England waiting to start routine hospital treatment has risen to a record high.

7.1 million people were waiting to start treatment at the end of September, according to new figures from NHS England.

This is up from 7 million in August, and is the highest number since records begain in August 2007.

A staggering 401,537 people have been waiting for more than 52 weeks to start their treatment, according to England’s September figures.

NHS medical director Sir Stephen Powis said: “There is no doubt October has been a challenging month for staff who are now facing a tripledemic of Covid, flu and record pressure on emergency services with more people attending A&E or requiring the most urgent ambulance callout than any other October.

“Pressure on emergency services remains high as a result of more than 13,000 beds taken up each day by people who no longer need to be in hospital.

“But staff have kept their foot on the accelerator to get the backlog down with 18-month waiters down by three-fifths on last year.”

Read full story

Source: The Independent, 10 November 2022

Read more

NHS waiting lists: Women, low earners and ethnic minorities worst affected

Women, low earners and ethnic minorities are faring worse on NHS waiting lists, according to research.

Healthwatch, a patient watchdog, warned there was a risk that those with “more demands on their lives” such as long hours or caring responsibilities could end up at the back of the queue.

It urged hospitals to be proactive in managing waiting lists and communicate with patients who might otherwise be left in limbo.

The Healthwatch survey found 54% of women had waited more than four months for treatment, compared with 42% of men.

They were also more likely to have had treatment delayed or cancelled, and to feel that a delay to treatment had made an impact on their ability to work.

Some 54% of people on lower incomes had been waiting more than four months for hospital care, compared with 34% of higher wealth individuals. They reported a greater impact on their mental health and their ability to work.

And 57% of respondents from ethnic minorities had faced a delay to or cancellation of hospital treatment, compared with 42 per cent of white British people.

Louise Ansari, Healthwatch England’s national director, said the factors could have a “layering effect” that meant people had a much poorer experience, calling for “an additional specific focus on those groups” so that they do not end up “in worse and worse health”.

Read full story (paywalled)

Source: The Times, 8 June 2022

Read more

NHS waiting lists: Rishi Sunak fails on key pledge as 7.5m people languish

Rishi Sunak has failed to deliver on his key promise to cut NHS waits, the health secretary has admitted, as new figures show that the overall waiting list now stands at 7.5 million.

An extra 300,000 patients are waiting for hospital care compared with January last year, when the prime minister pledged that, under his government, “NHS waiting lists will fall and people will get the care they need more quickly” .

Victoria Atkins, the health secretary, admitted that Sunak had failed to deliver on his promise but argued: “I don’t think anyone could have thought that it was an easy promise to make and it was going to be easy to achieve.”

Read full story (paywalled)

Source: The Times, 11 April 2024

Read more

NHS waiting lists in England unlikely to fall in 2023, research suggests

NHS waiting lists are unlikely to fall in 2023, and the backlog is unlikely to be significantly tackled until mid-2024 despite being one of Rishi Sunak’s priorities for this year, research suggests.

The NHS has struggled to increase the number of people it is treating from its waiting lists each month due to ongoing pressures from Covid-19, although there have been signs of improvement in the past month, analysis from the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) has found.

Max Warner, an IFS economist and one of the report’s authors, said that although the NHS had made “real progress” to reduce the number of patients waiting a very long time for care, efforts to increase overall treatment volumes had “so far been considerably less successful”.

The NHS Providers’ chief executive, Julian Hartley, urged the government to introduce a fully funded workforce plan and to talk to unions about pay for this financial year as strikes were causing huge disruption to services, and risked undoing hard-won progress made on care backlogs.

“Mounting pressures on acute, ambulance, mental health and community services, such as chronic workforce shortages, could hamper efforts to cut the backlog further if left unchecked,” he said.

Read full story

Source: The Guardian, 8 February 2023

Read more
 

NHS waiting lists hiding 10m patients in need of follow-up care

More than ten million patients are on “hidden” waiting lists for NHS care.

There are 6.7 million patients on the official NHS waiting list, which includes people who have been referred by GPs for hospital treatment such as cataract or hip and knee surgery.
However, data released by health service trusts under freedom of information laws suggests there are 10.3 million further patients who need follow-up care, illustrating the scale of the task facing the NHS.

Louise Ansari, national director at the patient group Healthwatch England, said: “Waiting a long time for treatment can put a huge strain on patients and their loved ones. But this can be so much worse when there is ‘radio silence’ from the NHS, leaving people uncertain if their referral has been accepted, unclear about how long they may have to wait and often feeling forgotten.”

Read full story (paywalled)

Source: The Times (30 August 2022)

Read more

NHS waiting lists force Britons to save up to pay for private healthcare, says report

NHS waiting lists mean most people in the UK now expect to have to spend money on private healthcare for routine services, new research has found.

For the first time an annual budget of £200 has been included in the minimum income standard produced by Loughborough University and the Joseph Rowntree Foundtion (JRF).

Charity JRF, which funds the research, says its shows the public feel they can longer count on the NHS, and warn for the millions who don’t reach the minimum income standard “no spare cash to pay for treatment and little prospect of accessing necessary treatment before their conditions deteriorate.”

The news comes as the NHS’ waiting list hit 7.62 million treatments with 6.39 million patients waiting for care.

The research calculates a minimum income standard for living by adding up the costs of goods and services that the publicbelieve are needed to participate in society.

Peter Matejic, chief analyst at JRF, said: “In previous years it would have been unthinkable that cash to pay for health treatments would be necessary for a minimum standard of living. But, this research shows that the public feel they can no longer count on the NHS to provide a universal service that’s free at the point of delivery because some NHS services are now so difficult to access.”

Read full story

Source: The Independent, 1 September 2024

Read more
 

NHS waiting lists drive more Britons to pay for medical treatment

Growing numbers of patients in the UK are paying for private medical treatment because of the record delays people are facing trying to access NHS care, a report has revealed.

They are using their own savings to pay for procedures that involve some of the longest waiting times in NHS hospital, such as diagnostic tests, cataract removals and joint replacements.

The increase in the willingness to self-pay is closely linked to a desire for private treatments that was increasing even before Covid struck in March 2020. But many private hospitals were unable to meet that demand for much of the pandemic because coronavirus disrupted so much normal healthcare.

Dr Tony O’Sullivan, an ex-NHS consultant and a co-chair of the campaign group Keep Our NHS Public, said: “The government’s deliberate and sustained running down of the health service has resulted in a two-tier system. The NHS is now in a permanent state of distress, leaving patients desperate for care, and – if they can afford it – feeling as if they have no choice but to go private, undermining the very vision of equality and care a well-funded NHS was so famous for.

“Hard-working people would not need to line shareholders pockets in this way if the NHS had not been underfunded, understaffed and neglected for so long.”

Read full story

Source: The Guardian, 20 April 2022

Read more

NHS waiting list will ‘probably go up’ in England, says minister

A Conservative minister has acknowledged the NHS waiting list, which stands at a record high with more than 7.4 million people waiting for treatment in England, will “probably go up” before it goes down.

Speaking on the 75th anniversary of its creation, the health minister Maria Caulfield claimed the NHS would be “thriving” in 25 years’ time, saying a two-year waiting time had “virtually been eliminated”.

But experts have called for more investment in the NHS, with Prof Philip Banfield, the British Medical Council’s chair of council, saying the health service is so fragile that it may not survive until its 80th anniversary.

The shadow health secretary, Wes Streeting, said the NHS would die without “the necessary investment and reform” to change and modernise.

Read full story

Source: The Guardian, 5 July 2023

Read more

NHS waiting list rises for third month in row

The hospital waiting list in England has risen for the third month in a row with experts warning the government's key NHS priority - tackling the backlog - is at risk.

At the end of August the waiting list for routine treatments hit 7.41 million – in May it was 7.36 million. The proportion waiting longer than the target time of 18 weeks has also risen.

Experts said the government was facing a significant challenge reducing waits, but ministers said its investment in the NHS would pay off. The government has promised that by the end of this parliament it will hit the 18-week waiting time target – something that has not been done for a decade.

Read full story.

Source: BBC News, 9 October 2025

Read more

NHS waiting list recovery ‘could take years’ report reveals

NHS waiting lists will take more than three years to be reduced to pre-pandemic levels, according to a new analysis.

Despite recent reductions in the waiting list in England, the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) think tank said that it is “unlikely that waiting lists will reach pre-pandemic levels” by December 2027 – even under a “best-case scenario”.

The latest figures show that the waiting list for routine hospital treatment in England has fallen for the third month in a row.

An estimated 7.6 million treatments were waiting to be carried out at the end of December, relating to 6.37 million patients, down slightly from 7.61 million treatments and 6.39 million patients at the end of November, according to NHS England figures.

Cutting NHS waiting lists is one of Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s top priorities. However, the PM admitted earlier this month he would not meet his promise to reduce waiting lists.

However, the new IFS analysis highlights how the NHS waiting list was already growing before the pandemic, but it rose “rapidly” during the crisis. The IFS report suggests a range of scenarios about how the waiting list could look in December 2024.

Under a “more pessimistic scenario”, waiting lists will remain at the same elevated level while an “optimistic scenario” would see them fall to 5.2 million by December 2027.

Read more

NHS waiting list patients ask if life is worth living

Huge waiting lists have left patients questioning whether their lives are worth living, a surgeon has warned.

Paul Williams, an orthopaedic surgeon at Neath Port Talbot Hospital, dubbed the effect of long delays on mental and physical health "horrific".

A health think-tank said waiting times were the biggest challenge the NHS in Wales has ever faced. The Welsh government said it wanted to "radically transform" how healthcare was delivered.

Mr Williams said: "To be living with pain from an arthritic joint is terrible.

"We sent out a questionnaire recently and many of the patients have actually replied that they're questioning if their life is worth living because of the pain they're in."

The latest figures for the Welsh NHS showed another record high for those waiting for hospital treatment.

The number of patients waiting more than 36 weeks has grown from 25,634 in February 2020 to 243,674 by August 2021. The longest waits included 56,279 people who needed orthopaedic or trauma treatment.

Read full story

Source: BBC News, 3 November 2021

Read more

NHS waiting list in England rises to record 7.7m

A record 7.68 million people are on a hospital waiting list in England, figures show.

The total at the end of July represents nearly one in seven people and is a jump of more than 100,000 in a month.

The rising number means the prime minister's pledge to bring down waiting lists is under threat. The government has blamed strikes for adding to the pressures facing the NHS.

It comes as ministers have announced an extra £200m for the NHS this winter.

Health Secretary Steve Barclay said he wanted to see "high impact" interventions to help the NHS get through winter.

Read full story

Source: BBC News, 14 September 2023

Read more

NHS waiting list in England hits record 7.5 million

NHS waiting lists in England have climbed to a record level, according to new figures that show 7.47 million patients were waiting to start routine hospital treatment at the end of May, up from 7.42 million at the end of April.

The growing list includes 416,000 children waiting to start treatment – up 9.7% in just one month, and including 21,282 who have been waiting more than a year.

Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health president Camilla Kingdon said it is “unacceptable” and “unfathomable” to have so many children waiting so long.

However, hospital leaders warned on Thursday they are not confident they will hit key NHS targets to reduce the waiting list in 2024 and 2025.

The figures come during a five-day junior doctors’ strike during which tens of thousands of operations and appointments are expected to be cancelled and ahead of NHS consultants’ strikes where the major of planned care is expected to be paused.

Read full story

Source: The Independent, 13 July 2023

Read more
 

NHS waiting list in England hits record 5.45 million

New figures show a record number of 5.45 million people are waiting for NHS hospital treatment in England, with many more joining the waiting list who also need treatment, and those who came back to the NHS for healthcare having not done so during the worst periods of the pandemic.

Sajid Javid, the Health Secretary has said, "We estimate there's probably some seven million people that ordinarily would have come forward to the NHS that stayed away, understandably, during the height of the pandemic. We want those people to come back. I don't know how many will come back but, even if half of them came to the NHS - and can I just stress I really want people that need to be seen by the NHS to know the NHS is there for them and they should come forward - but as they do I think waiting lists will rise because there will be a huge increase in demand." 

Read full story.

Source: BBC News, 12 August 2021

Read more

NHS waiting list hits record high of almost 7.8m

The NHS waiting list in England has hit a new record high, with almost 7.8 million people waiting for treatment, data shows.

An estimated 7.75 million people were waiting to start treatment at the end of August, up from 7.68 million in July. It is the highest number since records began in August 2007.

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.

As the NHS waiting list grows A&E pressures are “ running red hot”, a major think tank has warned, with new figures showing 123,000 patients waited more than 12 hours in emergency departments last month.

Some 8,998 people in England are estimated to have been waiting more than 18 months to start routine hospital treatment at the end of August, up from 7,289 at the end of July, according to data.

A total of 396,643 people in England had been waiting more than 52 weeks to start routine hospital treatment at the end of August, up from 389,952 at the end of July.

The Government and NHS England have set the ambition of eliminating all waits of more than a year by March 2025.

Read full story

Source: The Independent, 12 October 2023

Read more

NHS waiting list hits record 6.4 million

A new high of 6.4 million people in England were waiting for routine NHS treatment in March 2022, as 12 hours waits in A&E hit an all time high last month and ambulance services continued to struggle.

This is up from 6.2 million in February and is the highest number since records began in August 2007.

A new record of 24,138 people had to wait more than 12 hours in A&E after a decision to admit them had been made in April.

The figure is up from 22,506 in March, and is the highest for any calendar month in records going back to August 2010.

However the number of patients being seen within four hours in April improved compared to March, with 72.3% of patients seen in this time compared to 71.6%.

Professor Stephen Powis, national medical director for NHS England, said: “Today’s figures show our hardworking teams across the NHS are making good progress in tackling the backlogs that have built up with record numbers of diagnostic tests and cancer checks taking place in March, as part of the most ambitious catch up plan in NHS history.

“We always knew the waiting list would initially continue to grow as more people come forward for care who may have held off during the pandemic, but today’s data show the number of people waiting more than two years has fallen for the second month in a row, and the number waiting more than 18 months has gone down for the first time."

Read full story

Source: The Independent, 12 May 2022

Read more
 

NHS waiting list estimates ‘confirm immense task ahead’ for nurses

New data has revealed as many as 14 million people could be on NHS waiting lists in England by the autumn of 2022 unless action is taken now to avoid this outcome. 

The Royal College of Nursing has confirmed these latest figures confirmed the “immense task that lies ahead” for the profession saying that more investment is needed to help tackle the waiting list crisis. 

In response to the analysis, Patricia Marquis, RCN England director, said: “These figures confirm the immense task that lies ahead for health and care services in recovering from the pandemic.”

Read full story.

Source: Nursing Times, 9 August 2021

Read more

NHS waiting list down after three months of rises

The NHS waiting list in England has fallen after three months of consecutive rises.

At the end of September, it stood at 7.39 million, down from 7.41 million the month before. Of those waiting, 61.8% of patients had been waiting less than 18 weeks.

That is the best performance for more than two years, but is well below the target of 92%, which the government has promised it will hit by the end of the parliament.

The NHS also released figures showing more than one million people came forward for flu jabs in the past week after a vaccination "SOS" was issued last week amid the early rise in flu cases this year.

Read full article.

Source: BBC News, 13 November 2025

Read more
 

NHS waiting list could increase to 13 million warns the health secretary

Health secretary Sajid Javid has warned NHS waiting lists will soar amid the incoming third wave of coronavirus. 

Thousands of patients are on hold for at least 2 minutes before their 999 calls are answered, The Independent has revealed. Mr Javid has also been told by officials the situation will get worse in the coming weeks. 

Speaking to the Sunday Telegraph, Mr Javid has said "Hearing that figure of 13 million, it has absolutely focused my mind, and it’s going to be one of my top priorities to deal with because we can’t have that."

Read full story.

Source: The Independent, 11 July 2021

Read more

NHS virtual wards available for 10,000 patients by September

The NHS has heralded a “new era” of healthcare that will see hundreds of thousands of patients avoid lengthy hospital stays and instead be treated in their own homes.

From September, 10,000 acutely ill patients will be cared for on “virtual wards”, using remote monitoring technology which automatically transmits data on their condition to teams of doctors and nurses several miles away.

Health chiefs believe the massive expansion of the scheme, which is already the largest in the world, is essential to free hospital capacity — preventing another winter A&E crisis and helping to bring down record waiting lists.

Every NHS region has set up virtual wards for frail over-65s, including dementia patients, as well as for respiratory conditions such as asthma or lung disease. From this month the scheme will be rolled out to cover under-18s, allowing terminally ill children to remain at home surrounded by family.

Read full story (paywalled)

Source: The Times, 28 July 2023

Read more

NHS vacancies in England at ‘staggering’ new high as almost 10% of posts empty

The number of posts lying vacant across the NHS in England has reached a “staggering” record high of 132,139 – almost 10% of its planned workforce.

The number at the end of June was up sharply from three months earlier when there were 105,855 vacancies, quarterly personnel figures show.

NHS leaders said the huge number of empty posts showed why the health service is in a state of deepening crisis, with patients facing long waits for almost every type of care.

The previous highest number of vacancies for full-time-equivalent staff was 111,864, recorded at the end of June 2019.

The new number represents 9.7% of the NHS’s planned staffing levels – a new high. As recently as March 2021 there were 76,082 vacancies.

Danny Mortimer, the chief executive of NHS Employers, said: “These figures paint a bleak picture. A jump in nearly 30,000 staff vacancies – equivalent to the entire staffing of a large NHS hospital – show an alarming trend across the NHS of rising levels of vacancies.”

Read full story

Source: The Guardian, 1 September 2022

Read more
 

NHS use of puberty blockers legal challenge begins

Legal action is being launched against the NHS over the prescribing of drugs to delay puberty. 

Papers have been lodged at the High Court by a mother and a nurse against the Tavistock and Portman NHS Trust, which runs the UK's only gender-identity development service (Gids). Lawyers will argue it is illegal to prescribe the drugs, as children cannot give informed consent to the treatment.

The Tavistock said it had a "cautious and considered" approach to treatment.

The nurse, Sue Evans, left the Gids more than a decade ago after becoming increasingly concerned teenagers who wanted to transition to a different gender were being given the puberty blockers without adequate assessments and psychological work.

Ms Evans said: "I used to feel concerned it was being given to 16-year-olds. But now, the age limit has been lowered and children as young as perhaps 9 or 10 are being asked to give informed consent to a completely experimental treatment for which the long-term consequences are not known."

Read full story

Source: BBC News, 8 January 2020

Read more
 

NHS urges people to attend vital lung cancer check-ups in England

NHS leaders are urging people to attend vital lung cancer check-ups as figures reveal almost two-thirds of those invited are not coming forward.

The NHS targeted lung health check service offered in some parts of England aims to help diagnose cancer at an earlier stage when treatment may be more successful. Current and former smokers aged between 55 and 74 are invited to speak to a healthcare professional and, if they have a higher chance of developing lung cancer, are offered a scan of their lungs.

Doctors are keen to reach those who may not have sought help for symptoms during the pandemic and could be living with undiagnosed lung cancer. People diagnosed at the earliest stage are nearly 20 times more likely to survive for five years than those whose cancer is caught late, according to the NHS.

The NHS has already diagnosed 600 people with the disease in travelling trucks, which visit convenient community sites across the UK, such as supermarkets and sports centres, aiming to make it easier for people to access check-ups. But figures show only a third (35%) of patients go to their lung health check when invited by the NHS.

“These lung checks can save lives,” said Dame Cally Palmer, the NHS cancer director. “By going out into communities we find more people who may not have otherwise realised they have lung cancer, with hundreds already diagnosed and hundreds of thousands due to be invited."

Read full story

Source: The Guardian, 19 April 2022

Read more

NHS urges breast cancer patients from minority backgrounds to participate in trials

An NHS body is encouraging women with breast cancer from minority backgrounds to take part in more clinical trials, after research found they are under-represented in studies that can offer life-saving treatment.

The pilot project, supported by the NHS Race and Health Observatory, is intended to improve representation in breast cancer clinical trials partly through culturally sensitive communications to people from racially diverse backgrounds.

Research from the UK Health Security Agency suggests young black women are more likely to have aggressive breast cancer tumours, experience poorer care and have higher mortality rates, but are significantly under-represented in clinical research.

Their lack of inclusion in trials could be partly down to distrust of the research process and a lack of knowledge, according to research by the UK’s National Institute for Health Research.

The project, which works in conjunction with Macmillan Cancer Support and the pharmaceutical company Roche, will run for a year and look at developing new ways for people with breast cancer to access clinical trials. It will develop action plans to improve representation and provide enhanced support for patients.

Read full story

Source: The Guardian, 31 August 2023

Read more

NHS urged to rollout QR 'trauma cards' after trial

The NHS should introduce pocket-sized cards listing patients' traumas to help "empower" survivors when they seek health care, a patient champion group said.

Healthwatch England said the cards, with a QR code on them, could discreetly alert health workers that they were caring for someone who has experienced trauma, and detail how to effectively look after them.

A trial in Essex found the cards were a "helpful tool" for patients, Healthwatch said, as it called for a national pilot.

Chief executive Louise Ansari said the experiences of vulnerable patients could be improved by a national rollout of the scheme.

The cards were designed to be handed to a healthcare professional when a holder was in a "triggering" situation.

They had a QR code that, when scanned, provided more information to the healthcare professional about what the individual was experiencing and how best to help.

Read full story

Source: BBC News, 3 March 2025

Read more

© 2026 Patient Safety Learning. All rights reserved.

Patient Safety Learning is registered as a charity with the Charity Commission Registration number 1180689.

×
  • Create New...

Important Information

We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue.