Over 58,000 people are waiting for treatment at the NHS trust that includes West Middlesex Hospital, according to figures published by the NHS. This is an increase from 48,000 people waiting for care in the summer of 2022 at the same trust. Of those waiting, a total of 1,761 have been waiting longer than a year. The NHS target is for patients to wait no longer than 18 weeks for hospital treatment, but 39% of patients on waiting lists locally are waiting longer than that.
The number of people waiting for treatment across England has increased every single month since Rishi Sunak pledged to cut NHS waiting lists. Since he became Prime Minister, waiting lists have grown by 724,000 patients, to over 7 million.
Commenting in full on these new figures Ruth Cadbury MP said,
“It’s simply unacceptable that record numbers of patients locally are waiting for treatment. I’ve heard of people locally having to wait far too long for cancer care and others waiting for treatments or operations that would enable them to return to work. So many people are being left in pain and agony because of the long wait for care. For millions of patients across England, the NHS is no longer there for them when they need it.’’
‘‘This is not the fault of our hard-working NHS staff who work tirelessly to keep people safe. These huge backlogs are solely the fault of Rishi Sunak and the incompetence that we have seen over the past 13 years from successive Governments.’’
‘‘The Prime Minister remains out of touch about the scale of the crisis in the NHS and is leaving patients waiting for care.’’
‘‘I will continue to campaign for the Government to tackle this backlog by recruiting over 10,000 new doctors and nurses, and by supporting existing NHS frontline staff.’’