Pritchard warns strikes threaten elective targets and safety

NHS England boss Amanda Pritchard has warned that meeting key elective recovery targets to eliminate 65-week waiters by March and ensure the waiting list is falling by next year is becoming “increasingly challenging”.

Ms Pritchard also re-emphasised concerns already expressed by NHS England that “if strikes continue into winter, it will be extremely difficult for us to provide safe care to our patients, particularly with a twindemic of covid and flu”.

The NHSE boss was asked by HSJ at the King’s Fund’s annual conference on Thursday how confident she was about the NHS achieving its next elective recovery target on 65-week waiters and the prime minister’s pledge in January to reduce overall waiting lists.

Ms Pritchard said: “We are really encouraged that there are talks under way between the government and the British Medical Association but clearly having had the level of disruption over the last 10 months of industrial action, we have seen really significant challenge on maintaining focus on reducing both long waits and on tackling overall waiting list size.”

She said that on weeks when there were no strikes, waiting lists reduced, and there had been sustained progress on cutting long waiters “despite the pressures of industrial action”. She praised the “extraordinary amount of focus and creativity from NHS staff” to achieve this.

But she added: “[There has to be] a real recognition that with ongoing industrial action [reducing long waiters and the overall list] is going to be an increasingly challenging target.”

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Source: HSJ, 3 November 2023