Nuffield Trust responds to NHS performance and SitRep data

“The new year ushers in mixed tidings for the NHS in England. This week’s elective reform plan promises welcome long-term actions to cut waits for planned treatment. But it arrives amid a stark backdrop of winter pressures affecting the quality and dignity of care many patients are receiving from the NHS.

“The waiting list for planned care continued to drop in November, which will fuel hope it is finally moving in the right direction. The government has a new interim target to have 65% of patients getting hospital treatment within 18 weeks of referral by April 2026. But with the proportion of patients seen within this timeframe now at 59% - and figures hovering under 60% for the past two years – hitting it will be no mean feat for trusts battling day-to-day pressures with constrained finances.

“The government’s new plan won’t solve the annual winter crisis in urgent care, which is now hitting in earnest. During December, 29% of patients waited more than four hours and 12% of patients waited more than12 hours in A&E. Hospital beds occupied by patients with flu spiralled to 5,139 a day on average in the latest weekly data. Meanwhile, there were 38,807 ambulance handover delays of over half an hour. The time lost due to delays of this length or longer is equivalent to just over 4,000 12-hour paramedic shifts a week.
 
“The government’s latest moves to improve planned hospital care and finally bring much-needed reform to the crumbling social care sector are encouraging. But here and now, patients are facing another cruel winter. To break the cycle of winter crisis after winter crisis, we need to see the same long-term thinking – and long-term funding – applied to urgent care. An equivalent plan for these services can't come soon enough.”