The number of people on the NHS England waiting list for treatment soared past 7.7 million for the first time in August.
This was up from 7,679,851 million people as of the end of July.
Of the 7,745,030 people awaiting treatment, 396,643 cases the patient was waiting more than one year.
There were 8,998 cases were waiting more than 18 months, and in 265 cases they were waiting more than two years.
In 58.0% of cases the patient had been waiting up to 18 weeks so not meeting the 92% standard.
For patients waiting to start treatment at the end of August 2023, the median waiting time was 14 and a half weeks.
Running red hot
Siva Anandaciva, chief analyst at The King’s Fund, said these latest statistics show the NHS is “running red hot” as it enters the busy winter period.
“Despite the Prime Minister’s commitment to cut waiting lists, more and more people are now queuing for routine hospital care, with over 396,000 still waiting more than a year for the care they need,” Anandaciva added.
“A&E departments have had a busy summer and are now facing a punishing winter, and the time taken for an ambulance to reach those people facing an emergency, such as for strokes, is now more than double the target of 18 minutes. And pressures on mental health care and cancer services show that there are few areas of patient care that are unscathed by workforce shortages and rising demand.”
But Anandaciva also pointed out the figures do not cover the period of recent industrial action.
“We know the ongoing strikes are contributing to cancelled appointments, with official figures indicating that more than one million outpatient appointments and operations have been cancelled since strikes began,” Anandaciva continued.
“And NHS services are not just struggling to meet demand for care, they are also struggling to balance their books. It is increasingly hard to see how the NHS will be able to maintain the quality of care for patients without overspending its current budget.”
Anandaciva further called on all parties to be honest about how the country got to this point, and where we can go from here.
“This month, the three main political parties have set out their health and care priorities, should they win the next general election,” Anandaciva said.
“It is tempting for ministers to seek short term solutions to what are, in reality, deep rooted issues. Much of the pressure that we see in hospitals can only be solved by boosting the ability of GP, community and social care services to support people before they end up needing hospital treatment.
“A combination of thinking long term about improving people’s access to out-of-hospital care, making health and social care a more attractive career, and tackling the biggest risk factors affecting people’s health, is what will slowly reverse the decline in NHS performance.
“But because of successive failures to plan for the long-term, the sad reality for patients and the public is that these long waits for NHS care are likely to remain for years to come.”
Another bleak set of figures
David Furness, director of policy and delivery at Independent Healthcare Providers Network (IHPN), described the data as “another bleak set of figures”.
“To have nearly 110,000 people waiting 65 weeks – a rise of nearly 13,000 in a month – particularly given the focus there has been on this group of very long waiters – is especially concerning.
“We need urgently to be pulling on every lever at our disposal, including deploying the capacity which exists within the independent sector to treat NHS patients more quickly.
“At the same time, the continued industrial action is having a clear impact which we need to get on top of. We need both the unions and the government to get around the table and try and reach a resolution, for the sake of staff and patients.”
Furness added that there were also particular concerns about waiting lists for community services with over 1 million people waiting, with children’s services waiting lists having gone up particularly in recent months.
“While we often see a lot of focus and attention on the wider elective waiting lists, along with emergency performance, we never seem to talk about the vital work which happens in the community and the picture there,” he continued.
“What we see today is more signs of services under immense pressure. Independent providers are key partners in the delivery of NHS community services across the country, and they’re telling us how difficult it is.”
