NHS waiting list has risen for the second month in a row, according to the latest NHS performance statistics.
The total number of people waiting for procedures and appointments was 7.4 million in July, up from 7.37 million the previous month.
A&E also faced its busiest August on record, with 2.27 million attendances. But this was lower than July, which saw 2.41 million attendances.
Despite the increase, analysis from The King’s Fund has suggested that hospital waiting lists are ‘much lower’ than predicted after the Covid pandemic, with high estimates projecting a 12.04 million waiting list by May 2025.
Director of policy, events and partnerships at The King’s Fund, Siva Anandaciva, said though part of this lower and slower growth was due to the NHS working hard to get through backlogs, this was also ‘unlikely to explain’ why the waiting lists are lower.
He suggested that other reasons for the slower growth was due to some patients’ health conditions resolving themselves, with others deciding to live with conditions. He added that some may have died before they could be put on the list.
‘Some patients may have sought out private health care and never made it onto an NHS list. Or they might have accessed NHS care through an emergency route because their condition became so serious that it was no longer treatable as a planned procedure. Or perhaps they benefited from new NHS schemes such as advice and guidance, which aimed to reduce unnecessary referrals for hospital care,’ he added.
But, he warned that the lower waiting lists might not be a good thing, as there could be ‘a lot of unheralded clinical risk sitting out there’.
The statistics also showed that 1.64 million elective care patient pathways were completed in July, which is the highest for any July going back to 2008.
Commenting on the latest NHS statistics, Rory Deighton, acute and community care director at the NHS Confederation, said it was ‘clear’ that demand for NHS care is continuing to grow.
‘NHS leaders and their teams have worked incredibly hard to keep performance levels stable. But we are concerned that if demand continues to grow we could be entering another very difficult winter where seasonal pressures could be further exacerbated by a fresh wave of strikes,’ he said.
‘It is also disappointing that waiting lists rose for the second month in a row despite the fact the NHS managed to deliver millions of extra tests, appointments and operations compared to last year. While the NHS managed to maintain levels of planned activity during the resident doctor strikes, the rise in waiting lists shows the scale of the challenge needed to achieve the 18-week target.
‘We have been urging the government to continue to boost capital investment in the NHS so that it can repair crumbling estates and invest in new infrastructure. The NHS will not be able to deliver the government’s promise to cut waiting times unless the government commits to allowing private capital investment to build modern healthcare facilities fit for the 21st century.’
It comes as NHS league tables have been published for trusts across England, with the Government pledging these will ‘raise standards’.
Tim Gardner, assistant director of policy at the Health Foundation, added that the waiting list ‘often increases’ this time of year.
But said it was a ‘reminder of the broader challenges’ facing the NHS amid the release of the hospital league tables.
‘The NHS needs a system-wide approach to recovery, one that prioritises investment, workforce resilience and long-term planning, rather than using the new rankings as another tool for top-down control and performance management,’ he said.
