Labour warns people are paying more for less as NHS waiting lists hit record high

Labour’s Wes Streeting has warned that patients are “paying more and getting less” as the latest figures from the health service revealed that a record-high 6.2 million people are currently on waiting lists for NHS treatment.

Commenting on the latest data from the NHS, which showed that 6,183,203 people were on NHS waiting lists in England as of February 2022, the Shadow Health Secretary today pointed out that taxes and waiting times are rising simultaneously.

“Record numbers are forced to wait longer than ever before, and horrifying reports of heart attack and stroke victims waiting hours in agony for an ambulance to arrive are now borne out by these figures,” he said.

Average ambulance response times for people experiencing heart attacks and strokes reached a record high of 1:01:03 in England in March 2022, according to the NHS data. The health service began recording the waiting time performance in 2017.

National Insurance contributions and council tax across the vast majority of councils rose at the start of April. Exclusive polling from LabourList showed that 39% of UK adults now see the Conservatives as “the party of high taxation”.

Streeting said today: “With the Tories now hitting people with unfair tax rises during a cost-of-living crisis, patients are paying more and getting less. Boris Johnson and the Conservatives are incapable of the leadership necessary to sort this out.

“Britain deserves better. Labour will secure the future of our NHS by providing the staff, equipment, and modern technology needed to treat patients on time.”

According NHS figures, 24,000 people have waited more than two years for the likes of a hip replacement or gynaecology services and reports have revealed people waiting hours on trolleys and in cubicles because there is no room to be admitted in to the hospital itself.

Matthew Taylor from the NHS Confederation warned earlier this week: “The brutal reality for staff and patients is that this Easter in the NHS is as bad as any winter.”

“Trusts are doing all they can to bear down on care backlogs, which have increased during the pandemic for hospital, mental-health and community services,” added Chris Hopson, the chief executive of NHS Providers. “But they face extraordinary pressures, including the continuing impact of Covid.”

The Shadow Health Secretary criticised ministers earlier this year for delaying the publication of the government’s plan to help the health service recover from the impact of the pandemic and tackle record-high numbers of people on NHS waiting lists, describing it as “just another cancelled operation”.

An ‘electives recovery plan‘ was published in February, setting out how the government planned to address backlogs that have built up, with the NHS promising to deliver around 17 million more diagnostic tests over the next three years.

It includes deploying teams of specialists to help patients prepare for their operations, and groups of clinicians and teams will be able to get instant access to test results so that they can offer patients faster clinical advice.