Surprise! NHS waiting lists shrink when the doctors don’t walk out
WAITING lists fell by almost 100,000 patients in November – the first month in a year without strike action.
It was the second consecutive month that lists had fallen and the largest monthly decrease outside of the pandemic since December 2010.
However, the gains were undone by last week’s six-day walkout by junior doctors, which resulted in the cancellation of 113,000 appointments and operations.
Health Secretary Victoria Atkins said the numbers show the progress that could be made in clearing the Covid backlog if unions abandoned picket lines and accepted ‘reasonable’ pay deals. The NHS has been disrupted by industrial action since November 2022, which has led to the cancellation of 1.33million inpatient and outpatient hospital appointments in England.
Health leaders say the true impact is likely to be double that as trusts avoided booking some appointments on strike days so they did not need to cancel them.
Waiting lists stood at 7.61million at the end of November – the latest month available – which was down from 7.71million at the end of October, according to NHS England.
Junior doctors, who are seeking a 35 per cent pay rise, have since walked out for three days in December and a further six days in January – the longest in the history of the NHS.
Ms Atkins said: ‘November was the first month without industrial action for over a year and we reduced the total waiting list by over 95,000.
‘This shows the progress our fantastic NHS staff can make towards bringing waiting lists down when they don’t have to contend with
‘It’s not fair to patients’
industrial action. We want to put an end to damaging strikes and if the British Medical Association’s Junior Doctors Committee can demonstrate they have reasonable expectations, I will still sit down with them.’
The Prime Minister’s spokesman said: ‘The strikes are having a significant impact on patient care.
‘It forces those staff who are not striking to have to cover for junior doctors and that has a knock- on effect on patients. It’s unacceptable. It’s not fair to patients [and] to other NHS workers – the majority of whom are paid less than a junior doctor.’
Dr Vivek Trivedi and Dr Rob Laurenson, co- chairmen of the Junior Doctors Committee, said: ‘We want to get waiting lists down, but can only do so with a fully staffed workforce.
‘Last week’s strike action, and the inevitable disruption it brought, could have been avoided if the Government had presented us with a serious offer that would value doctors appropriately and address the real terms pay cut we have experienced over so many years.’
The Government urged junior doctors to negotiate but stressed their demand for real-terms pay restoration to 2008 levels is ‘not achievable’ even over several years.
NHS England said progress in the overall waiting list was due to staff delivering more than 1.63million treatments in November, the highest on record and about 150,000 more than the same month before the pandemic.