NHS CEO says NHS England’s waiting list for routine treatment will take three years to clear

Sir Simon Stevens, chief executive of the NHS, has said that England’s backlog of patients waiting for routine treatment will take at least three years to clear, and warned that 13 million people will be left needing care “if no action was taken”.

There is currently an all-time high of 5.3 million people waiting for operations such as hip and knee replacements, with coronavirus having caused significant disruption across the health service.

Speaking to a Royal Society of Medicine webinar, he claimed “effective action” was needed to correct the problem, adding “Clearly, that is not what ought to happen over the next three years or 30 months or so.”

Sir Simon went on to say “It is possible to put in place the extra resources, the operating capacity, new ways of doing fast diagnostics, that will mean that doesn’t come to pass.”

At the end of May, 5.3 million people in England were waiting for treatment. The waiting list has continued to grow throughout the pandemic and the latest figure is the highest since records began in 2007.

However, health chiefs have indicated that they are starting to see a decrease in the backlog, with people waiting longer than 18 weeks for routine operations, like cataract surgery and hip replacements dropping by over 80,000 in May.

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Posted by Karen Motley, Clinical Negligence Department, Chadwick Lawrence LLP (tonymay@chadlaw.co.uk ), medical negligence lawyers and clinical negligence solicitors in Huddersfield, Leeds, Wakefield and Halifax, West Yorkshire.

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