Rishi Sunak accused of failing NHS as key waiting list pledge not met

Health minister admits it was never going to be an easy promise to keep

Rishi Sunak has failed on delivering his key pledge on the NHS, the health minister has admitted, as fresh statistics show any progress on reducing the health service’s waiting list has stalled.

The prime minister had pledged in January last year that waiting lists would fall and patients would “get the care they need more quickly”.

But figures released on Thursday show the situation is much worse than when Mr Sunak vowed to bring waiting lists down, with hundreds of thousands more people waiting for care since then.

Victoria Atkins, the health secretary, admitted that the PM had failed to deliver on his promise. She told the BBC: “I don’t think anyone could have thought that it was an easy promise to make and it was going to be easy to achieve.”

She added: “Of course we know there are people who are waiting, they’re in pain, they’re in anguish. We absolutely understand that.”

The official figures, released by NHS England, show the number of people waiting for routine hospital care was 6.29 million in February – the same figure recorded in January.

An estimated 7.54 million treatments were waiting to be carried out in February, a figure that has fallen slightly for the fifth month in a row but was described by the NHS as “stable” compared to January, after a change to way the list is counted.

Victoria Atkins has admitted to some missed targets (PA)

Meanwhile, demand on A&Es hit a record high, with 1.46 million patients attending major emergency departments last month – the highest figure ever recorded.

As demand increased, the NHS missed its new target to have 76 per cent of patients seen within four hours, with 74 per cent being seen within this time. This was up from 70.9 per cent in February and the highest figure since April 2023.

Mr Sunak said the figures show the government is “making headway” towards his goal. The government claims that progress in tackling the waiting list has been hampered by a string of strikes by junior doctors, who remain in a pay dispute with the government.

Wes Streeting says the prime minister has 'failed on the NHS' (Getty)

But shadow health secretary Wes Streeting said the prime minister had “failed on the NHS”. Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey accused Mr Sunak of “living in a parallel universe if he thinks our NHS is recovering”.

The waiting list NHS figures covers all non-emergency hospital care, including routine operations such as hip replacements and hernia repairs as well as diagnostic scans such as X-rays.

Elsewhere, there were 253,025 urgent cancer referrals made by GPs during February, up from 249,787 in January and also up year-on-year from 229,769 in February 2023.

Some 78.1 per cent of patients urgently referred for suspected cancer were diagnosed or had the disease ruled out within 28 days, up sharply from 70.9 per cent the previous month. It is the first time the NHS England target of 75 per cent has been met.

Some 63.9 per cent of patients waited longer than 62 days from an urgent suspected cancer referral or consultant upgrade to their first definitive treatment for the disease in February, up from 62.3 per cent in January.

Oncologist Professor Pat Price, co-founder of the #CatchUpWithCancer campaign, said: “Cancer treatment capacity is beyond breaking point.

“What makes this frustration intolerable is when ministers and NHS leaders seem to suggest that everything is in hand because we are diagnosing more cancer patients. But what good is a cancer diagnosis if we don’t treat the patients on time?”

NHS national medical director Professor Sir Stephen Powis said the latest health service performance data “demonstrates once again how the NHS is working flat out to recover services” despite “enormous demand”.

He added that industrial action “has had a significant impact” on elective recovery.

Sir Stephen said “there is further to go” but “it is clear the NHS is treating more patients more quickly and we have announced new ambitions for this financial year to build on the improvements made so far”.

The average response time for ambulances dealing with the most urgent incidents in March – defined as calls from people with life-threatening illnesses or injuries – was eight minutes and 20 seconds.

This is down slightly from eight minutes and 25 seconds in February, but is above the target standard response time of seven minutes.

Ambulances took an average of 33 minutes and 50 seconds last month to respond to emergency calls such as heart attacks, strokes and sepsis. This is down from 36 minutes and 20 seconds in February, but below the target of 18 minutes.

Danielle Jefferies, senior analyst at The King’s Fund, warned that the NHS “is stuck in a cycle of poor performance”.

“The narrative of waiting 30 minutes for an ambulance to arrive when a person has had a stroke has become normalised,” she added.