The NHS waiting list for routine operations has topped seven million for the first time. This is up from 6.8 million in July and is the highest number since records began in August 2007. The Mail has more.
It means one in eight people in England are now waiting for NHS treatment. This figure includes almost 390,000 patients who’ve been forced to wait over a year for treatment. This is up from 377,689 at the end of July, and is the equivalent of one in 18 people on the entire waiting list.
It comes as after both the Government and NHS England pledged to eliminate all waits of more than a year by March 2025. Some 2,646 people in England have been waiting more than two years to start routine hospital treatment at the end of August. This is down slightly from 2,885 at the end of July and a peak of 23,778 in January 2022.
The Government and NHS England set the ambition to eliminate all waits of more than two years, except when it is the patient’s choice or for complex cases requiring specialist treatment, by July this year.
Meanwhile, more than 30,000 A&E patients faced 12-hour waits – a record high.
In addition to a raft of NHS data today there are reports that some heart attack patients are now facing an eight hour wait for an ambulance in some parts of the country.
Professor Mama Mamas, a consultant cardiologist in Stoke and Professor of Cardiology at Keele University, told the Independent the situation was a “shambles”.
“I was on call this weekend and I was seeing delays of eight hours. It was several people, three or four this weekend with heart attacks that waited between four and eight hours… it’s a national disgrace that we’re in this situation,” he said.
