The NHS is hiding delays to care for millions of patients

Covid has created an urgent need, and a unique opportunity, to get the true waiting list out in the open.

The English waiting list continues to break new records in the aftermath of Covid, and even the Secretary of State says it could reach 13 million patients. But the referral-to-treatment data – bad as it is – doesn’t reveal the full scale of the backlog, partly because not all waiting lists fall under RTT rules, but also because the RTT waiting list data is inaccurate and incomplete.

The scale of these hidden delays could be vast - millions of patients. Some could wait for years, some indefinitely, always taking second place to the swelling RTT waiting list and the targets that surround it. Some patients who need urgent care will end up with disability or death. Others are already in terrible pain. All deserve better.

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Source: HSJ (Paywalled). 20 September 2021