The hospitals with the LONGEST waiting lists revealed: As 7.37million people wait for routine treatment, the Government is slammed for ‘misleading’ public on NHS figures
The number of people in England waiting for routine hospital treatment has surged for the first time since March.
More than 7.37million treatments—relating to 6.23million patients— are now in the queue for ops like hip replacements, official data revealed today.
This includes over 190,000 people stuck in limbo for at least a year, often in pain.
While the figure for June marks a drop on the record 7.77million treatments logged in September 2023, it is up almost 10,000 on May.
Separate NHS monthly performance data today also revealed around 1,000 patients faced waits of at least 12 hours in A&E every day in June.
Experts slammed the ‘unacceptable’ toll being heaped on patients, warning that A&E clinicians are ‘reporting this week as one of the worst they have experienced’.
It comes just hours after a leading think tank warned the NHS and the Government had ‘misled’ the public about the reasons why the waiting list has fallen.
Health Secretary Wes Streeting has repeatedly claimed the 260,000 drop in the NHS backlog since the general election ‘was not a coincidence’, adding that it was because of ‘record investment and fundamental NHS reform’.
But a new Quality Watch report by the Nuffield Trust think tank found 245,000 appointments were being removed every month because patients died, had treatment elsewhere or moved abroad, rather than because treatment had finished.
According to the monthly NHS figures, the number of hospital treatments on the waiting list jumped by 9,712 to 7.37million.
Some 191,814—2.6 per cent of those in the backlog — had been waiting at least 12 months.
And 1,103 had been waiting for at least 18 months. Although that figure is down from the 1,237 in May.
Waiting lists last increased in March before falling for two consecutive months.
Responding to the latest figures, Dr Becks Fisher, Nuffield Trust director of research and policy, said the waiting list ‘remains stubbornly high’.
She added: ‘Our new analysis shows that waiting list reductions in previous months are not wholly due to increases in appointments being delivered. In fact, the NHS is still treating fewer patients than are being referred.
‘But, an average of about 245,000 cases have been coming off the list each month due to reasons other than patients being recorded as getting their treatment.
Health Secretary Wes Streeting has repeatedly claimed the 260,000 drop in the NHS backlog since the general election ‘was not a coincidence’, adding that it was because of ‘record investment and fundamental NHS reform’
‘Doing this work to improve the accuracy of the waiting list is important, but we should be under no illusions that despite delivering more appointments, the NHS is still not meeting patient demand.’
Elsewhere, new analysis from NHS England found more care was delivered during the most recent doctors’ strike compared to a year ago.
Resident doctors—formerly known as junior doctors—in England took to the picket lines for five days in July 25 in a dispute with the Government over pay.
But, according to the health service, 11,071 more appointments and procedures went ahead during this strike compared to the five-day walkout before the general election in 2024.
Staff absences were also lower, it said, with around 1,243 fewer staff absent each day on average compared to last June.
Health Secretary Wes Streeting said the figures show the NHS ‘was more resilient against last month’s strike action than ever before’.
‘We are getting on with the job of delivering progress in the face of strike action, and we will continue to put patients first,’ he said.
Latest A&E figures, however, show 35,467 patients had to wait more than 12 hours last month before being admitted, transferred or discharged.
Some 76.4 per cent of patients were seen within four hours in A&Es in July, up from 75.5 per cent in June.
The health service’s target is 78 per cent.
But these figures only look at trolley waits — the time between doctors deciding a patient needs to be admitted and them getting a bed.
Figures capturing exact arrival times at A&E paint a much bleaker picture, with 122,852 patients (8.3 per cent) forced to wait at least 12 hours.
Dr Nick Murch, president of the Society for Acute Medicine, said: ‘These figures again highlight the extent of the crisis across urgent and emergency care, with an unacceptable amount of people waiting over 12 hours in emergency departments, often suffering avoidable harm.
‘Clinicians across the UK are reporting this week as one of the worst they have experienced, with no sign of the brief respite seen in the immediate aftermath of recent strike action.
‘Yet there remains no tangible and immediate action to address urgent workforce and capacity issues.
‘Sadly, instead, recent commentary and reporting suggests a growing reliance on selective or misleading interpretations of NHS data, as highlighted this week in analysis by the Nuffield Trust which calls into question claims the NHS is being turned around.
‘This is similar to what is being seen in many urgent and emergency care settings where some areas are being rebranded to ‘off the clock’ areas improving performance data but not changing the patient journey or experience.
Cancer patients also faced longer waits in June—separate NHS figures released today show just one of the three national cancer targets were met.
Just 67.1 per cent of newly-diagnosed cancer patients referred for urgent treatment were seen within two months—the target is 85 per cent.
Meanwhile, only 91.7 per cent of patients started treatment within 31 days of being booked in June, below the goal of 96 per cent.
The health service target of telling at least 75 per cent of patients with suspected cancer they do or don’t have the disease was, however, met at 76.8 per cent.
But separate ambulance figures for July released by the health service today, found response times had improved.
Heart attack and stroke patients in England, known as category two callers, had to wait an average of 28 minutes and 40 seconds for paramedics to arrive on the scene.
This is almost a minute quicker than June but ten minutes longer than the 18 minute target.
The average category one response time—calls from people with life-threatening illnesses or injuries—was 7 minutes and 56 seconds.
This is just 1 second longer than the previous month. The target time is seven minutes.
Ambulance teams handled more than 843,535 incidents in July.
