NHS waiting list in England hits record high in October
The number waiting for non-emergency NHS hospital treatment has risen to 6m, the highest since records began almost 15 years ago, underlining the health service’s fragility as it braces for the consequences of the new Omicron coronavirus variant.
Official data from NHS England published on Thursday showed a large jump in the backlog in October, with about 35 per cent of patients waiting more than 18 weeks to start treatment, against a target of just 8 per cent.
The Institute for Fiscal Studies said the latest figures amounted to 140,000 people being added to the queue in just one month and 1.55m more than in February 2020 before Covid-19 struck. The waiting list includes 312,665 patients who have been waiting more than a year.
Tim Mitchell, vice-president of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, warned the spread of the new Omicron variant would further hamper the NHS. He said many unvaccinated people with Covid-19 still needed critical care beds and warned the booster campaign would “unfortunately, divert precious resources at a time that is traditionally the busiest for the NHS”.
He called on the government to publish its delayed recovery plan for the NHS — originally expected last week. “Patients who have been waiting a year or more now need to know a plan is taking shape to get waiting times back on track,” he added.
Professor Stephen Powis, NHS England national medical director, said NHS staff were “continuing to address the Covid backlog in the face of sustained pressure on urgent and emergency care”.
Almost 150,000 more people had started elective treatment in October compared with the same month last year, NHS England said. Patients were waiting an average of 12 weeks to begin treatment at the end of October, it said, compared with a high of 19.6 weeks on average in July last year.
But health leaders also pointed to the number of beds occupied by patients who had to be kept in because of the crisis in social care. They also highlighted the strains on emergency care.
New weekly data, published for the first time this winter, showed that, on average, there were 10,500 patients each day last week “who no longer needed to be in hospital but were not discharged that day, with pressures outside hospitals also high”, NHS England said. That meant more than one in 10 beds were occupied by patients who were medically fit to leave.
Powis added: “As we head into a very challenging winter, we are working with partners in social care to get as many patients who are fit to do so home for Christmas, which is right for them and their families as well as freeing up beds.”
David Hare, chief executive of the Independent Healthcare Providers Network, representing private hospitals, said as the NHS approached one of its toughest winters, it must “turbo-charge” its use of independent sector capacity to help avoid NHS waiting lists getting out of control.
The opposition Labour party hit out at the government, which is anxious to demonstrate improved NHS performance after announcing a rise in national insurance contributions from next April to fund health and social care.
Wes Streeting, shadow health and social care secretary, said: “One in every 10 people in England are on NHS waiting lists today and the situation is set to get even worse, despite the Tories’ unfair tax rises on working people.”
The government said that the NHS would “continue to face pressures and the threat of a new variant as we head into winter,” adding that it was “backing healthcare services and staff so people get the care they need.”