Waiting list progress stalls after NHS ‘sprint’

Responding to the latest monthly NHS performance statistics, Nuffield Trust Deputy Director of Research Sarah Scobie said:

"Progress has stalled in the month after the NHS rushed to meet its interim target to reduce the time patients are waiting for planned treatment.

“In March, the NHS achieved its aim to treat 65% of patients within 18 weeks of referral, but the sudden upwards trajectory hasn’t continued into April. With the overall size of the waiting list going up again, the uncomfortable truth is that there are now more people waiting for care, often in fear, distress and confusion, than there were last month.

“A return to waiting times not seen for a decade will require steady improvement over several years, not just short-term leaps. The gains that were made to meet the interim target were nothing short of remarkable, but they were made through a strenuous effort supported by a short-term boost of over £100 million in additional funding. The challenge for the NHS is to find a way to keep making steady gains without sporadic cash injections.

“Today the NHS has published new data on the number of patients receiving different types of ‘corridor care’ for the first time. This is an important step towards better understanding the scale of this issue blighting thousands of patients. But we still need to keep a close eye on the unbearable waits of over 12 hours for patients on trolleys in A&E departments, for which we have data going back to long before the pandemic. Over 50,000 people were stuck on a trolley waiting to be admitted to a ward for more than 12 hours in May – that’s much more than this time last year. Scrutinising the longest waits is essential for understanding whether the NHS is truly on the road to recovery.”