Commenting on the latest monthly NHS performance statistics, Nuffield Trust Deputy Director of Research, Sarah Scobie said:
“Pressure is building to meet the March target for having under 22% of patients facing waits longer than four hours in A&E. In the latest data for January, it stands at around 28%, which is substantially worse than the previous month. Making a 6% improvement by spring may not sound like much, but the NHS has struggled to make even tiny incremental improvements in recent months, despite staff working flat out. Even if this target is met, it won’t address the dreadfully long waits patients are experiencing in A&E corridors after a decision to admit them has been made.
"It’s optimistic that the planned treatment waiting list fell again in December, but it was only a small reduction, so the NHS is clearly finding it very difficult to maintain progress on getting through the backlog. Referrals usually drop during December, since fewer people will have joined the waiting list around Christmas.
“With just three more monthly data releases to go before the March deadline for the NHS to get 65% of patients treated within 18 weeks of referral, there will be a big push to get the overall waiting list figure down. But we hope to see more of this reduction coming from extra treatment rather than other things like administrative processes.”