New NHS data for England shows 7.39 million treatments were waiting to be carried out at the end of April, down from 7.42 million the previous month
The NHS waiting list has come down to its lowest level for two years as a raft of new measures show the health service may have finally “turned the tide”. Health Secretary Wes Streeting will on Thursday give a keynote speech at the annual NHS Confed Expo conference in Manchester.
It comes a day after the health service was awarded a 3% annual funding rise while other government departments had their funding squeezed. New NHS data for England shows 7.39 million treatments were waiting to be carried out at the end of April, down from 7.42 million the previous month.
READ MORE: Rachel Reeves pumps cash into NHS with 4million more tests and procedures to cut waits
This relates to 6.2 million patients as some are on the waiting list for two appointments. Mr Streeting will address medics and NHS leaders on the day the data confirmed the waiting list is at its lowest since March 2023.
Mr Streeting said: “We are putting the NHS on the road to recovery after years of soaring waiting times, by providing record investment and fundamental NHS reform.
“Thanks to our interventions and the hard work of NHS staff, the overall waiting list has now fallen in April for the first time in 17 years, dropping by almost a quarter of a million since we took office.
“This is just the start. We’ve delivered millions of extra appointments since July, we are pushing on with our mission to get the NHS working for patients once again.”
The NHS waiting list hit a record high in September 2023 with 7.8 million treatments following a steady upward trajectory since 2010 when the Tories came to power and it stood at 2.5 million.
Latest NHS data shows the average time patients had been waiting for planned treatment fell to the lowest level since July 2022 at an average of 13.3 weeks. This came despite increasing patient demand with 2.3% more patients being added to the waiting list per working day last year.
Some 75.4% of patients in England were seen within four hours in A&Es last month, up from 74.8% in April. The Government and NHS England have set a target of March 2026 for 78% of patients attending A&E to be admitted, discharged or transferred within four hours.
“The number of people waiting more than 12 hours in A&E departments in England from a decision to admit to actually being admitted – so-called “corridor care” – stood at 42,891 in May, down from 44,881 in April.
England’s top hospital doctor Meghana Pandit, Co-National Medical Director, said: “Despite another huge wave of demand across NHS services, today’s data suggests that reform and the hard work of our staff is helping to buck the seasonal trend, with an atypical April drop, seeing waiting lists hit a two-year low.
“Thanks to NHS staff who have delivered another record month of tests and checks while facing the second busiest month ever recorded in A&E, continuing to make progress in treating patients faster as we work to drive reform across elective and emergency care.
“We are determined to continue on this trajectory for patients as staff work to turn the tide for patients waiting for care, and while huge pressure on services remains, we are starting to see a real difference across our services.”
However the data also showed fewer people are getting a diagnosis of cancer or having it ruled out within four weeks.
A total of 76.7% of patients urgently referred for suspected cancer were diagnosed or had cancer ruled out within 28 days in April, down from 78.9% in March and 80.2% in February. The Government and NHS England had set a target of March 2026 for this figure to reach 80%.
The proportion of patients who had waited no longer than 62 days in April from an urgent suspected cancer referral, or consultant upgrade, to their first definitive treatment for cancer was 69.9%, down from 71.4% in March. GPs in England made 264,880 urgent cancer referrals in April, down from 272,165 in March but up year-on-year from 260,516 in April 2024.
The spending review on Wednesday gave the NHS an annual budget rise of 3%. This is lower than the average 3.6% increases the NHS has received since its founding and also lower than the 3.3% rise seen in 2023 under the previous Conservative government. The rise was still greater than other government departments and a think tank claimed Britain is turning into a “National Health State”.
The Resolution Foundation said Rachel Reeves’s announcements had followed a recent trend that saw increases for the NHS come at the expense of other public services.
Ruth Curtice, chief executive of the Resolution Foundation, said: “Health accounted for 90% of the extra public service spending, continuing a trend that is seeing the British state morph into a National Health State, with half of public service spending set to be on health by the end of the decade.”