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The government is making progress on cutting NHS waiting lists in England, the prime minister insists, as latest figures show targets are being missed.
Rishi Sunak said: “While we haven’t made as much progress as I would like, today’s figures show we are making headway towards that goal.”
Critics say too many patients are being let down and face long waits for getting care.
The Liberal Democrats accused Mr Sunak of “living in a parallel universe”.
Referring to the overall waiting list for treatment of 7.54 million, Mr Sunak said: “A drop of almost 200,000 in the last five months shows what the NHS can do for patients. Had there been no strike action, an extra 430,000 patients could have been treated.
“We still have more work to do, but our plan is working.”
He added: “When I became prime minister, I made cutting the NHS waiting lists one of my top five priorities. Today’s statistics clearly show we are making headway towards that goal.”
The NHS recovery plan set a target for the end of March for 76% of patients attending A&E to be admitted, transferred or discharged within four hours.
Another target in the plan was to eliminate all waits of 65 week or more for treatment by March this year. This has been pushed back to September.
The latest NHS England figures show:
an estimated 7.54 million planned treatments were waiting to be carried out in February, involving 6.29 million patients
the number of patients waiting more than 65 weeks for treatment was 75,004 at the end of February, down from 92,213 (19%) in January
there were 2.35 million visits to Accident and Emergency in March, 8.6% higher than the number of attendances in March 2023
some 74.2% of patients were seen within four hours in A&Es in March, up from 70.9% in February and the highest figure since April 2023
Wes Streeting, Labour’s shadow health secretary, said: “Rishi Sunak has failed on the NHS. He’s missed his own targets to cut ambulance waits and A&E waits.
“Patients with suspected heart attacks or strokes are waiting almost double the safe amount of time, when every minute matters.
“Doctors have said that patients in desperate need of care have been left waiting for 24 hours in A&E, while relatively healthy patients have been seen faster in order to hit this four-hour target.”
Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey said: “This week we uncovered that over 150,000 people waited over 24 hours in A&E last year. Now we find that waiting lists have gone up by 330,000 after Rishi Sunak pledged to cut them.
“To add insult to injury, the Conservatives have cut NHS spending while millions of patients are suffering in pain on endless waiting lists.
“Rishi Sunak is living in a parallel universe if he thinks our National Health Service is recovering.
“The Conservative Party and the prime minister are out of touch, out of ideas and deserve to be kicked out of office.”
19 February
14 March