NHS waiting lists in England rise to 7.57mn

The number of people waiting for routine hospital treatment in England rose to 7.57mn at the end of April, in a blow to Rishi Sunak’s pre-election claim that wait times are currently falling.

The official figure climbed from 7.54mn at the end of March, the first rise in seven months, NHS England data showed on Thursday.

The figure remains well above the 7.21mn treatments outstanding in January 2023, when the prime minister made falling queues one of his five pre-election promises to voters.

Asked on Sky News on Wednesday about NHS waiting lists, Sunak said he had been “very clear” that they were now higher than in January last year, but that numbers were “now coming down”.

Efforts to cut waiting times have been hampered by a post-Covid backlog of cases, and by strikes by junior doctors over pay levels. The wage dispute remains unresolved, with doctors preparing to strike from June 27 to July 2, ahead of the election.

Figures released on Thursday show that several key NHS targets continue to be missed.

In 2022, the NHS said it would eradicate 18-month waiting times by April last year; but the number of patients waiting more than 18 months for an appointment in April this year stood at 5,013, up from 4,770 in March.

The NHS also has a pledge to admit, transfer or discharge 95 per cent of patients within four hours of arrival in A&E. However, the number of patients in England waiting longer than four hours for emergency care in hospitals was 42,555 in May — or 26 per cent of those waiting.

Both the ruling Conservatives and the opposition Labour party have made tackling the crisis in the NHS a central part of their pitch to voters in the upcoming election.

Sunak on Wednesday said that “industrial action” from junior doctors was “why we haven’t made as much progress”.

Sir Keir Starmer told Sky News he plans to “get in the room and settle this dispute”, but failed to answer whether he will meet doctors’ demands for higher wages.

Responding to the latest NHS performance data, Siva Anandaciva, chief analyst at The King’s Fund, said the scale of disruption in the health service “would have been unfathomable 10 years ago” as “waiting lists targets are routinely missed up and down the length of England”.

He added: “In the 2015 election, NHS waiting times were almost neutralised as a political topic because they were still broadly met month-in, month-out.”

Professor Sir Stephen Powis, national medical director of NHS England, said: “As these figures show, demand for NHS services across the country remains high.”

He added: “May was a record month for urgent and emergency services, with the highest number of A&E attendances as well as being the busiest May for the most urgent ambulance call-outs, while staff delivered a record number of elective appointments for April.”