NHS Waiting List at Barts Health Trust reaches a new shocking total of 103,126 – Latest Figures

The latest figures from the NHS show that at the end of December 2021, there were 103,126 people on the waiting list at Barts Health Trust which covers Hackney.

8244 people had been waiting for more than a year for an appointment and 670 people had been waiting more than two years.

The average (median) waiting time for a patient is 14.5 weeks.

At the outbreak of the Covid pandemic, following a decade of Tory mismanagement there were 4.4 million people on the NHS waiting list in England, then a record high. Now it’s more than 6 million.

Nationally, the standard of 92% of people seen within 18 weeks of a referral has not been met since 2016. Now, 1 in every 9 people in England are on the NHS waiting list.

The NHS went into the latest wave of Covid infections with the longest waiting list ever, understaffed and overstretched. Workforce shortages and the withdrawn “threat” of dismissal for staff who are not vaccinated – all botched government policy decisions – have actively worsened staff/manager relationships in health settings.

Cllr Chris Kennedy, Hackney Labour lead on health, commented: “People in Hackney are being forced to wait months and even years for treatment, often in pain and discomfort. Waiting times were bad before the pandemic, they are dreadful now and they are getting worse.

“The Conservatives can’t blame this on Covid – a record 4 and a half million were waiting before Covid-19 struck. This always happens under the Tories – the longer they are in power, the longer patients have to wait for appointments.

“To add insult to injury, the Conservatives are telling people in Hackney that, despite the hike in national insurance, they will continue waiting longer for years to come. It’s not even close to good enough.”

Wes Streeting MP, Shadow Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, said:

“Record numbers of people are waiting for care and they are waiting longer than ever before.

“After a decade of Tory mismanagement, the NHS went into the pandemic with record waiting lists and staff shortages of 100,000. It’s not just that the Tories didn’t fix the roof when the sun was shining, they dismantled the roof and removed the floorboards.

“The Conservatives are so incompetent they’ve come up with a plan that sees patients paying more in tax but waiting longer for care.

“The longer we give the Conservatives, the longer patients will wait.

“The last Labour government reduced waiting times from 18 months to 18 weeks. The next Labour government will secure the future of our NHS, providing the staff it needs to treat patients on time.”

  • The Conservative Government published its elective care recovery plan for the NHS this week but failed to set out how it would address the workforce shortages the NHS is facing. The plan set the Government’s ambition as beginning to reduce waiting lists in 2024.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/nhs-waiting-lists-to-keep-rising-despite-covid-recovery-plan-tch2095n5

Issued: 21 February 2022