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Rishi Sunak admitted that he has failed to cut NHS waiting lists, despite his pledge to do so in 2023, but said strikes had “hindered” his progress.
Speaking on the BBC’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg on Sunday morning, Mr Sunak said: “We’ve virtually eliminated those waiting two years and then one-and-a-half years, and I always said it would be around spring of this year that we would start see the waiting lists fall properly.
“In spite of the record resources we’ve put into the NHS – more doctors, more nurses, community diagnostic centres – we are treating more people than ever before in the NHS history but the waiting list have not come down.”
Levels hit a record high in September 2023 of 7.77 million, but began to fall in October to 7.71 million.
But some 10,506 people in England are estimated to have been waiting more than 18 months to start routine hospital treatment – up from 10,201 at the end of September.
Mr Sunak added that he “absolutely accepts” that failing to cut NHS waiting lists “happened on my watch”, but insisted that the Government was “doing all the right things”.
He said that ongoing strikes in the NHS had “hindered” his progress, and that waiting lists had begun to fall when health service staff were not on strike.
“Towards the end of last year we had a period without any strikes in the NHS, and what did we see, we saw the waiting lists fall tens of thousands, by 65,000 over the period of October,” Mr Sunak said.
“Waiting lists started to fall when you had a period without industrial action, so that actually gives me the confidence to know that once we can resolve the outstanding industrial action… that we will be able to see waiting lists fall because of the extra investment and resources we have put in the NHS.”
He said that pay resolutions had been reached with “every other part of the NHS” except for junior doctors, who have staged a six-day walkout in January.
Mr Sunak continued: “So every other part of the NHS workforce, and I’m grateful to them for everything they’re doing, has reached a resolution with the Government on a reasonable fair pay settlement, the only people that haven’t are the junior doctors.”
“We can get the waiting lists down when we don’t have strikes, that’s what the number show, that’s what everybody wants to see, I think that’s what the doctors would like to see too and I would urge them to try and come back round the table so we can get everyone back in and we can start getting the waiting lists falling.”
The Prime Minister had pledged at the start of 2023 to cut NHS waiting lists, alongside other pledges of stopping small boat crossings, reducing national debt, growing the economy and halving inflation.
Only the pledge on inflation has been met, with some limited progress on the others.
