NHS waiting list falls to lowest level in almost three years
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/health/nhs-government-wes-streeting-health-secretary-press-association-b1266601.html
Posted by Half_A_
NHS waiting list falls to lowest level in almost three years
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/health/nhs-government-wes-streeting-health-secretary-press-association-b1266601.html
Posted by Half_A_
28 Comments
Feels like the government is doing a better job at communicating their successes.
Why only now though? This is a good start but the waiting list are still 200% longer than most European systems
Its amazing what investing in services and grown up governance can accomplish.
so I should get a letter soon with an appointment for treatment right? Right?
Have they released data on how many people removed from the waiting list were actually treated?
I know it’s anecdotal, but I have had 3 referrals in the last few years and none have resulted in a treatment. One seemed to resolve itself after waiting for almost two years, another was rejected without me speaking to anyone or them even looking at the scans, and for the latest one I am now looking at going private because I have been waiting over a year just to get an appointment date.
Isn’t it just the covid backlog which has been finally cleared? So we’re back to the normal shit waiting times rather than the super-shit waiting times?
If labour get immigration under control there no reason why they won’t win the next election
Seems to have gone from trending up under the tories to trending broadly down under labour. Gonna struggle with all this good news.
Mostly by removing loads of people from waiting lists.
I had an ongoing outpatient 3 monthly setup. Despite my bloods and scans showing no improvement and having to be screened regularly to make sure nothing gets worse, they are saying if I remain stable (same awful results) they’ll let me go, despite a year ago needing to have certain numbers 3 appointments in a row.
I am not alone in this. You can’t just suddenly increase output, which they haven’t. They are simply removing a lot of patients – which is fine for minor things in a sense, only mine isn’t minor.
The doctor basically said just go to your GP to get put back on the schedule if I don’t want to be discharged. So the plan short term is remove many patients, then people inundate GP’s to get back into the lists. Usual political screening.
You can tell this is a positive story because the posts already getting swamped with default name accounts desperately trying to explain why this is bad.
Waiting lists are down mainly because Labour has started paying hospitals per patient removed from the waiting list, not more operations and treatment. This incentive can lead to patients being taken off the list without care being completed.
It happened to me. I reached the top of the list, pre ops done, but they decided to send me for some more tests and took me off the list. Tests confirmed I still need the operation, but my follow-up with the consultant was cancelled and rescheduled for July six months later. Patient off the list, payment received, target met.
Evidence (from last batch of “improvement”)
https://www.bmj.com/content/390/bmj.r1753
Cancels loads of appointment, claims they’re cutting waiting lists. Well they aren’t lying I guess.
Becaue most people don’t bother any more. I spent over a decade trying to get help for chronic pain with a huge list of symptoms and was sent away time and time again with painkillers.
One single visit to a doctor while I was on holiday (for something unrelated) and they’d diagnosed me with cancer which was going to leave me paralyzed if not dealt with.
The waiting list is still higher than it was in 2022…
Cherry picking targets here.
Also this is still almost 10% of the population waiting for treatment.
What I would like to see, is data for how many people have gone private during this time frame to see if that’s soaked up these numbers. Which effectively waters down the “success” or boosts the success, either way.
I had a head MRI to look for a growth in September.. my appointment with consultant isn’t until 23/02.. long wait for something that could be a tumour.. maybe.. if I die.. I’ll be shown in the drop of people needing treatment. See how that works.
Artificially lowered by 1. Kicking people off lists who don’t respond to a text. And 2. Discharging stable patients to accept new patients & then when the stable patient needs treatment, they’ve got to wait nearly a year to get back to their speciality.
Oh, well that won’t sit well with the current false narrative.
Without trying to sound negative but after waiting almost 12 months for a dermatology appointment at the end of December, my appointment was rescheduled to mid December and then cancelled 3 all together 3 days later. 😐
I was put on a waiting list in October last year for a heart condition. Between Christmas and New Year I was sent a text saying I needed to go to the app and respond to a message.
The message was that I needed to confirm that I still wanted to stay on a waiting list. Basically if I didn’t respond, I’d be removed from the waiting list…
Add in a higher number of people going private and I’m not convinced anything is really improving.
I’ve been skeptical of health data ever since Wes Streeting claimed that people were using the online booking more…
Because the only way you can get a booking is with online…
To those saying “they kicked people off the list”…well, yes, they did. But that’s obviously the first step – clear out those who aren’t with us, don’t need treatment or don’t want to continue. Then you know what’s left and can assign resources based on this.
It’s also not new….the tories did it after Covid. It’s a cheap trick to make the figures look great – you can show massive drop off by clearing out the fodder appointments not needed.
It’s 7.3 million. Two years ago, it was 7.2 million. It’s barely changed. Honestly I think a big factor is a lot of people die at this time of year! We are still looking at multiple decades to eliminate the list, and that hasn’t changed.
Labour really know how to pick the worst days to deliver good news.
I believe there is serious fraud going on with regards to waiting lists. Waiting lists don’t start when you are referred, they start when the department the referral is sent to decide to accept the referral and put you on a waiting list. This means they can show an ‘average wait time’ of much lower than the reality by simply waiting to accept the referrals.
Great news amongst an increasing amount of good news I’ve seen recently.
I hope we are finally done as a nation with the doom spiral of constant incessant negativity
Oh boy, exact same article as last year. I hate when ‘journalists’ are cherrypicking numbers against timescales to come up with an article headline.
It fell down by 90k people.
Half of them probably dead, other half either gave up or got private treatment.
Well, either the NHS magically found their efficiency cabinet or the data is skewed somehow/they’re doing some fuckery to mark patients as “treated” when they’re actually not.
Honestly, love the NHS but for British people it seems to be close to a cult discussion at this point.
When they use these headlines they are focussing on key areas for improvement.
Waiting lists are still longer than you would like and depends on the departments funding and resources for instance NHS gender identity clinics for such a small proportion of the uk population 5 to 10 years wait and some places an awful lot longer. Bet they didn’t put that in their break down of shorter waiting lists.
It’s always what you need to hear
This is the biggest load of bollocks nothing headline I’ve seen. Genuinely.
Look at the chart. It was about 7.75M at peak and is now 2-3 years later about 7.25M.
.. Cool story, bro? A 7% decrease? So if we just wait another two decades it will be actually low?