Jonathan Ashworth responds to highest NHS waiting list on record

Jonathan Ashworth MP, Labour’s Shadow Health Secretary, responding to the news that the NHS waiting list is the highest on record, said:

“Today’s NHS stats reveal a health service in a summer crisis struggling without the resources and staff needed to deliver quality care on time. Behind every statistic is a desperately worried patient languishing longer in pain and distress at risk of serious illness or permanent disability.

“Bringing down waiting times must be the priority for ministers, not the distracting top-down reorganisation Sajid Javid is pushing ahead with.

“Instead ministers must deliver a credible long term rescue plan for our NHS and social care sector, guaranteeing the staffing and modern technology that are so desperately needed to bring down waiting times, avoid a winter crisis and provide the exceptional care patients deserve.”

Ends

Notes to editors:

• There are now 5.45 million people on the waiting list, the highest figure on record

• 304,803 people have been waiting more than 12 months to be seen

• 3,750,116 are waiting more than 18 weeks for treatment - the highest on record and almost 2 in 5 people on the waiting list. NHS England