Accelerating elective recovery takes a pause (HSJ, 13 December 2024)

Summary

The rate of waiting list reduction has paused far short of the required one million per year.

The shift from a rapidly growing waiting list to a rapidly shrinking one failed to gather speed in October for the first time in more than two years.

If the government is to deliver its pledge to restore 18-week waits by 2029, the acceleration needs to resume until the list is shrinking by one million patient pathways per year. But in October the rate of improvement paused at less than 200,000 a year.

Improvement is still improvement. If the NHS is keeping up with demand, and the waiting list is shrinking consistently, then elective pressures are steadily melting away. The question is: how fast? At October’s rate, recovering the “18 weeks” standard would take decades. The government has pledged to deliver it in a single parliament.

This HSJ discussion looks at the data.