NHS waiting lists for routine hospital treatments have been reduced for the fifth month in a row.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak hailed it as proof that hospitals are finally getting a handle on the huge backlog.
At the end of February there were more than 7.54 million procedures, such as hip replacements and cataract surgery, waiting to be performed. More than a year ago, tens of thousands of people registered.
The total number fell by around 36,000 in January, according to NHS England statistics.
Queues were approaching 7.2 million in early 2023, when Sunak promised to reduce waiting lists so that “people get the care they need more quickly”. This means the waiting list has increased by around 300,000 since then, with officials blaming the strike chaos for putting additional pressure on hospitals battling an “eternal winter”.
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Mr Sunak admitted that “we haven’t made as much progress as I would like”.
But he added: “Today’s figures show that we are moving towards that goal.” “We still have more work to do, but our plan is working.”
Sunak also said an extra 430,000 patients could have been treated if doctors and nurses had decided not to strike over bumper pay deals.
His comments come after Health Secretary Victoria Atkins admitted Sunak had failed to keep his promise.
She told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “I don’t think anyone would have thought it was an easy promise to make and that it was going to be easy to achieve.”
‘Of course we know that there are people waiting, who are suffering, who are distressed. We absolutely understand.”
Ms Atkins told Times Radio that the reduction in the waiting list was “a significant achievement, particularly when it comes in the context of industrial action by junior doctors”.
“We have seen waiting lists fall, we have an unwavering commitment and determination to reduce those backlogs further and we are seeing progress.”
And he added: ‘Across the country there are different achievements, across the country different trusts manage to manage their waiting lists.
“What we are trying to do is spread those good practices across the country, incentivising trusts to deal with their backlogs, but also, more importantly, meeting the targets for people coming into the system today and next week, and so on.”
Wes Streeting, Labour’s shadow health secretary, said: “Rishi Sunak has failed the NHS.
“Waiting lists are still 320,000 longer than when he became Prime Minister, despite his promise to cut them.”
Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey said: “Rishi Sunak lives in a parallel universe if he believes our NHS is recovering.”
“The Conservative Party and the Prime Minister are out of touch, out of ideas and deserve to be thrown out of office.”
Delays soared to an all-time high in the wake of the pandemic, with hospitals having to give up entire wards for Covid space.
Around 4.4 million treatments were booked into the system when the virus arrived in the UK. Queues reached a record 7.8 million in September.
An endless wave of strikes added to the problem, paralyzing hospitals that were asked to clear backlogs as they battled a staffing crisis.
Last week, consultants in England accepted an offer from the Government, ending a labor dispute that has dragged on for more than a year.
But ministers remain locked in a standoff with young doctors, who are seeking a pay rise of up to 35 per cent.
NHS waiting list figures also showed that 305,050 patients had been waiting at least a year for treatment, down slightly from 321,394 the previous month.
The health service had been ordered to eliminate all waits of more than a year by the end of March. This has been delayed until September.
In February, some 252 patients had been waiting in line for more than two years, compared to 376 registered a month earlier.
The NHS was asked to eliminate two-year waits by July 2022, except for those who chose to wait longer, did not want to travel to be seen faster or for very complex cases requiring specialist treatment.
A&E departments are also feeling the pressure, NHS performance data shows.
Nearly 43,000 attendees waited at least 12 hours before being admitted, transferred or discharged in March.
Only 74 percent were treated within four hours.
Under the NHS’s own A&E regulations, 76 per cent must be admitted, transferred or discharged within four hours.
But these figures only take into account tram waits: the time between doctors deciding a patient needs to be admitted and getting a bed.
Figures reflecting exact arrival times paint a bleaker picture, with almost 148,000 forced to wait at least 12 hours.
Rapid response treatment units, now operating in major emergency departments in England, discharged more than 200,000 patients on the same day last year. This was an increase of 11 percent in one year. NHS chief executive Amanda Pritchard described the plan as “one of the biggest transformations in urgent care in recent years”.
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One of the main causes of so-called “corridor waits” is the large number of patients who remain in hospital despite being well enough to leave.
These delays in the discharge of “bed blockers” are often due to a lack of suitable places to transfer patients to, amid a shortage of places in nursing homes, and a lack of sufficient help from caregivers to allow patients to return home.
This, in turn, congests hospital beds and causes delays in emergency services.
The NHS, however, noted that A&E admission figures show March was the busiest month on record, with 2.35 million people attending emergency units.
Professor Sir Stephen Powis, NHS national medical director, said: “Today’s data demonstrates once again how the NHS is working flat out to recover services and reduce waiting times for patients, despite the huge demand for services, with more people than ever. attended the ER in the last year: more than a million more than before the pandemic.
It comes as separate data published today shows that a massive overhaul of NHS care has saved tens of thousands of patients from spending the night in hospital.
Rapid response treatment units, now operating in major emergency departments in England, discharged more than 200,000 patients on the same day last year. This was an increase of 11 percent in one year.
Freeing up beds gives hospitals much-needed extra capacity to cope with gigantic backlogs.
NHS chief executive Amanda Pritchard described the plan as “one of the biggest transformations in urgent care in recent years”.
SDEC facilities offer field testing to speed up treatment and reduce crowding into overcrowded casualty units.
They are usually delivered from dedicated units, close to A&E.
Patients can be sent there through A&E, or even referred directly by their GP.
The initiative allows some patients who need a multi-day treatment to go home each night and return the next day.
As of this year, all 170 major emergency departments in England have medical SDECs.
Some offer additional specialized units, such as pediatrics and gynecology.
Nationwide, more than two million patients were discharged the same day, rather than overnight, in the year ending January 2024.
This represented an increase of more than 200,000 from 1.8 million the previous year.