Record 6.8m people waiting for hospital treatment in England

[dutchman]

Expert on NHS says latest figures show Liz Truss is inheriting a health service in ‘critical condition’



Liz Truss has received a stark insight into the dire state of the NHS after new figures showed millions of people in England were facing often record delays to access vital healthcare.

One leading NHS expert said the long waits for care, diagnostic tests and hospital beds showed that Britain’s new prime minister “inherits an NHS in critical condition”.

The total number of people in England waiting for hospital treatment rose again to a record high of 6.8 million at the end of July – almost one in eight of the population.

Patients are also facing long waits for accident and emergency care, cancer treatment, such as surgery or chemotherapy, and for an ambulance to arrive after a 999 call.

Of the 6.8 million people on NHS England’s “referral to treatment” waiting list, 2,665,004 had been waiting for more than 18 weeks, which is the supposed maximum waiting time for procedures such as a joint replacement, hernia repair or cataract removal.

In addition, 377,689 had been waiting more than a year to start their treatment, almost 22,000 more than a month before, according to the latest monthly performance data published by NHS England.

The data showed that ministers and NHS bosses had failed to fulfil their pledge to eradicate two-year waits by the end of July; 2,885 such cases had not been resolved by then, despite major efforts by hospitals to meet the target.

Wes Streeting, the shadow health secretary, accused the Conservatives of breaking their promise.

Nigel Edwards, the chief executive of the Nuffield Trust health thinktank, said: “These figures clearly show what a monumental challenge faces the new prime minister and health secretary in delivering on the NHS.”

He said that in August more than 130,000 patients were left waiting for more than four hours in accident and emergency units for a hospital bed.

“These waits are now worse than they were in previous winters. The new prime minister inherits an NHS in critical condition,” he said.

Although ambulance response times across England in August were better than in July, the service was unable to meet a single one of its targets across its four major callout categories: life-threatening, emergency, urgent and non-urgent.

Response times for suspected stroke or heart attack patients were better than in July, when it took ambulance crews an average of 59 minutes to reach such patients. However, the average 42 minutes and 44 seconds seen in August was still more than double the 18-minute target.

[rebbonk]

Looking, at that graph, I cannot help thinking about how long the Tories have been in power. 12 years, if you want to check!

[dutchman]

Worst-ever NHS waiting times are costing lives, say doctors’ leaders



Nearly 20,000 people a day are waiting at least four hours in A&E amid a dramatic collapse in NHS performance.

Patients are dying avoidably as record numbers spend at least 12 hours stuck on a trolley in hospital corridors waiting for a bed to become available, doctors’ leaders say. Waiting times are worse than ever across almost all measures, including cancer and planned surgery, according to monthly NHS England performance statistics.

The rise in numbers waiting for those services — such as hip replacements, MRI scans and cataract surgery — shows no sign of slowing and includes 401,537 patients waiting for over a year, often in pain.

A crisis in emergency care means that only 69 per cent of patients attending A&E in October were seen within the four-hour target, the worst figure ever. A record 43,792 people — about 1,400 a day — waited for at least 12 hours. Many spend that time on trolleys waiting for a bed.

Heart attack and stroke victims are waiting more than an hour on average for an ambulance. with some dying as a result, and the NHS is nowhere near the response time targets seen as essential to saving lives.

NHS leaders blamed the poor performance on a “tripledemic” of Covid, flu and pressures on emergency services; October was the busiest month on record for A&E attendances, at 2.1 million.

The ongoing deterioration of the health service’s ability to provide basic timely care will fuel debates over whether the NHS should be given extra funding as it faces a £7 billion shortfall next year.

Waiting times are expected to get worse this winter, when up to a million NHS staff including nurses walk out in an unprecedented wave of strikes.

Professor Sir Stephen Powis, medical director of NHS England, said: “There is no doubt October has been a challenging month for staff who are now facing a tripledemic of Covid, flu and record pressure on emergency services, with more people attending A&E or requiring the most urgent ambulance callout than any other October.

“Pressure on emergency services remains high as a result of more than 13,000 beds taken up each day by people who no longer need to be in hospital. But staff have kept their foot on the accelerator to get the backlog down with 18-month waiters down by three fifths on last year.

“We have always said the overall waiting list would rise as more patients come forward, and with pressures on staff set to increase over the winter months the NHS has a plan – including a new falls service, 24/7 war rooms and extra beds and call handlers.”

The government and NHS have set a target of eliminating all waits of a year or longer by March 2025, but many health leaders say this will be impossible without action to fill the service’s 132,000 vacancies.

Of the 7.1 million waiting to start hospital treatment at the end of September, 401,537 people in England had been waiting for more than 52 weeks. This is the equivalent of about one in 18 people on the waiting list and is up from 292,138 this time last year and 1,613 in February 2020, before the pandemic.

There has been an alarming jump in 12-hour A&E waits in England; 43,792 people waited longer than that in October, up 34 per cent from 32,776. This is by far the highest figure since records began and is up from 1,268 this time two years ago. The average ambulance response time to Category 2 emergencies such as strokes and heart attacks was 61 minutes; the target is 18.

In October more than 32,000 999 callers with emergencies including suspected stroke had to wait two hours for an ambulance to arrive.

Wes Streeting, the shadow health secretary, said: “NHS staff are slogging their guts out but there simply aren’t enough of them. Labour will ensure patients are treated on time again. We will train a new generation of doctors and nurses, paid for by abolishing the non-dom tax status.”

Dr Tim Cooksley, president of the Society for Acute Medicine, said: “Standards are at an unacceptably poor level for both patients and staff with an expectation that this will deteriorate further over the winter months.

“All parts of the NHS are unquestionably struggling. Prolonged waits for ambulances, long stays in emergency departments and acute medical units, longer periods for patients in hospitals waiting for social care and increased waiting on elective lists with large numbers of cancellations due to lack of beds continue to dominate the picture.

“In the short term there needs to be some honest discussions regarding what the NHS can deliver over the next few months . . . We are seeing a new definition of what crisis means.”

The proportion of cancer patients in England who saw a specialist within two weeks of being referred urgently by their GP has dropped to its lowest level on record. In September 72.6 per cent of patients in England had a first consultant appointment within two weeks against a 93 per cent target, according to provisional figures.

Only 67.2 per cent of patients urgently referred for suspected cancer were diagnosed or had cancer ruled out within 28 days, down from 69.5 per cent the previous month and the second-worst performance in records going back to April 2021.

Michelle Mitchell, chief executive of Cancer Research UK, said: “Behind today’s numbers are real people affected by cancer and facing unacceptably long waits for diagnosis and treatment during what is already an incredibly anxious time — real people who continue to be promised better by successive health secretaries, but who nonetheless continue to be let down.”

Professor Pat Price, co-founder of the #CatchUpWithCancer campaign, said: “Today’s figures show a worsening cancer catastrophe. This is a crisis, services are at breaking point. In just three months, over 17,000 cancer patients have missed life-saving cancer treatment targets. These are the worst figures on record.”

[rebbonk]

We had an acronym for this, SNAFU. (Situation Normal All F*cked Up). This really is situation normal for the NHS.

I was talking with a friend about the NHS yesterday, one of the biggest problems is the number of managers, just what do they do (except add costs for posh, plush carpeted offices) and where do they add any value?

[dutchman]

Record 7.68m people waiting to start routine hospital treatment in England



The NHS waiting list in England has hit a new record high, with nearly 7.7 million people – about one in seven – waiting for treatment.

Figures from NHS England show growth in the overall list, plus more people facing long waits of a year or more compared with the previous month.

The waiting list for treatment has been growing for much of the last decade, passing 3 million in 2014, 4 million in 2017, 5 million in 2021 and 7 million in 2022.

In February 2020, the last full month before the start of the Covid pandemic, the waiting list stood at 4.57 million.

Since then, the list has increased by just over 3 million, to 7.68 million as of July this year – the latest monthly figures just released by NHS England. This is up from 7.57 million in June and the highest number since records began in August 2007.

Rishi Sunak has made cutting waiting lists one of his priorities for 2023, pledging in January that “lists will fall and people will get the care they need more quickly”.

The new data shows 389,952 people in England had been waiting more than 52 weeks to start routine hospital treatment at the end of July, up from 383,083 at the end of June.

There were estimated to be 7,289 people in England who at the end of July had been waiting more than 18 months to start routine hospital treatment, up from 7,177 at the end of June.

Siva Anandaciva, the chief analyst at the King’s Fund thinktank, said: “Today’s performance stats show there was no summer reprieve for under-pressure health services, and they come at a time when the NHS is in the spotlight for poor performance and culture.

“There continue to be real issues with how long patients are waiting for care in key services, including in A&E, where 73% of patients are being seen within four hours, which is below the government’s 76% recovery target and well below the 95% NHS standard patients are entitled to. Continued industrial action, including next week’s unprecedented combined junior doctors’ and consultants’ strike, will hinder the NHS’s ability to clear this backlog.”

The shadow health secretary, Wes Streeting, said patients were waiting an “unacceptably” long time. He said: “On the NHS, Rishi Sunak is inaction man, refusing to meet with doctors to end NHS strikes and adding to the Conservatives’ NHS backlog, leaving patients waiting for months on end in pain and agony.”