NHS failing to cut waiting times as promised in recovery plan, report warns | NHS

The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) has warned that despite billions of pounds of investment, the NHS is failing to cut waiting times as promised in the rescue plan.

The ruling by the influential parliamentary committee casts serious doubt on whether Labor can deliver on its key promise to voters to “fix the NHS” by ensuring patients can regain access to hospital care within 18 weeks by 2029.

Progress to deliver faster testing and treatment has “stalled”, the cross-party PAC warns in a scathing report. He also criticizes Keir Starmer and health secretary Wes Streeting for ordering a costly and unplanned reorganization of the NHS in England. He said this could harm maintenance and was reminiscent of the turmoil surrounding the HS2 rail project.

Far more patients than promised are having to wait more than 18 weeks (sometimes more than a year) for non-urgent hospital care and more than six weeks for an X-ray or scan, according to the report. “Progress in reducing wait times appears to have stalled, with the total elective care waiting list reaching 7.4 million clinical pathways,” the report states; This is around 220,000 fewer than when Labor came to power in July 2024.

The PAC’s conclusions will alarm ministers who know that the public’s top priority is health. To see NHS waiting times falland Reformation UK has recently replaced Labor Party As the party that voters think has the best policies in the field of healthcare.

The somber verdict of the ruling contrasts sharply with the optimistic picture of progress on the NHS during Labour’s 16 months in power. The streets were painted last week.

In a speech to health service leaders, the health secretary insisted: “The NHS is on the road to recovery.” He highlighted that the waiting list for care had fallen by more than 200,000 in the 18 weeks since Labor came to power; ambulance response times are faster; More cancer cases were diagnosed within 28 days; and that the NHS has a further 2,500 GPs.

The Liberal Democrats said NHS efforts to tackle long delays common to care were a “mess”.

Rachel Power, chief executive of charity Patients’ Association, said: “The PAC’s findings make clear what patients have felt for more than a decade: despite billions of dollars being spent, the NHS is still unable to provide the timely care people desperately need.”

PAC analyzes NHS England’s progress selective recovery planIt was released under the Conservative government in 2022 and promised to deliver much faster waiting times by March 2025.

PAC found:

• In July, 192,000 people had been waiting for care for at least a year, despite a pledge to eliminate the practice by March 2025.

The PAC also found that Labour’s unexpected decision to restructure the NHS in England, which Streeting rejected in opposition, was “not prudent”, that the decision was made despite no money being allocated for it and no impact assessment carried out, and that there had been repeated “poor practice” on HS2 and the new hospitals programme.

The PAC also sounded the alarm about what delaying care could mean for patients. Clive Betts, the committee’s deputy chairman and Labor MP, said: “Every unnecessary day a patient spends on the NHS waiting list is both an increased concern for that person’s unresolved case and a steadily increasing risk to their life if they go undiagnosed.”

Liberal Democrat health spokeswoman Helen Morgan said: “What a disgrace. This report should ring alarm bells at No 10. The government promised to cut waiting lists and yet its promises turned out to be empty.”

Siva Anandaciva, head of policy at the King’s Fund think tank, added: “This report adds to the continuing evidence that the UK is lagging behind other countries’ health services in recovering from the crisis.” [Covid-19] Pandemic.

“Despite being one of the Prime Minister’s top three priorities, the progress that has been made and the political will to make this a reality, the government understands that achieving this will be neither quick nor easy.”

Labour’s promise to “build an NHS fit for the future” was one of five major “missions” it would undertake if elected in its election manifesto last year. Streeting and Starmer said this would include restoring, by 2029, the guarantee provided by the last Labor government that patients would be admitted to planned hospital care within 18 weeks.

But reports from the Institute for Fiscal Studies, the Health Foundation and the Institute of Government have cast doubt on the likelihood of this happening.

Streeting did not respond to the PAC’s report. A spokesman for the Department of Health and Social Care defended Labour’s record, saying: “This government inherited a broken NHS with waiting lists soaring and elective services in need of urgent modernisation. This report focuses on the previous government and we took urgent and robust action to tackle waiting lists and modernize elective care.”

“Waiting lists are falling for the first time in 15 years. Thanks to record investment and modernisation, we have reduced the backlog by more than 230,000 and exceeded our target of additional appointments by delivering more than 5 million extra services. We are delivering the change the NHS has been crying out for.”