An additional 331,000 patients currently waiting for care on the
NHS could have been treated since January 2022, if the Government
had made full use of spare capacity in the private sector.
Private providers claim they can treat 30 per cent more NHS
patients than were being treated before the pandemic. But NHS
figures reveal that, for more than a year, the number of patients
treated using the private sector has been consistently below
that.
In January 2022, Labour announced that it would use spare
capacity in the independent sector to bring down NHS waiting
lists, with treatment provided free at the point of use. Had all
available capacity been used in the months since, 11,893 more
inpatients and 319,078 more outpatients could have been
treated.
In the same period, the number of people waiting for NHS
treatment has grown by 1.3 million to a record high of 7.5
million. Health Secretary and his predecessors
repeatedly promised to use more spare capacity in the private
sector to cut waiting lists, but have failed to deliver.
The Government has now missed multiple targets laid out by its
elective recovery plan – most recently failing to eliminate 18
month waits by April of this year, with 7,400 patients still
waiting a year and a half or more for treatment in July.
Labour has committed to using private sector capacity to bring
down NHS waiting lists in the short-term, as part of its
national mission to build an NHS fit for the future, that is
there when people need it, by training the next generation of NHS
staff and modernising the health service.
, Labour’s Shadow Health Secretary,
said:
“The Conservatives are failing to make use of private sector
capacity and patients are paying the price.
“If Labour had been in office since January last year, more than
330,000 people would have received the treatment they desperately
need. Instead, patients face record waiting times while the
Tories dither and delay.
“No one should be waiting in pain while hospital beds that could
be used lie empty. The next Labour government will use spare
capacity in the private sector to get patients seen faster.”
Ends
Notes
