Figures from the NHS show that 48, 548 people are waiting for NHS treatment at Chelsea and Westminster hospital trust (which includes West Middlesex hospital) with 583 people having to wait for more than a year, under the watch of three separate Health Secretaries.
At the outbreak of the Covid pandemic, following a decade of Government mismanagement, there were 4.4 million people on the NHS waiting list in England, then a record high. Nationally, the standard of 92% of people seen within 18 weeks of a referral has not been met since 2016. Now, 1 in every 9 people in England are on the NHS waiting list.
The NHS went into the latest wave of Covid infections with the longest waiting list ever, understaffed and overstretched. Last week the Government published its elective care recovery plan for the NHS this week but failed to set out how it would address the workforce shortages the NHS is facing. The plan set the Government’s ambition as beginning to reduce waiting lists in 2024.
Commenting in full Ruth Cadbury MP said,
“Record numbers of people across Hounslow are waiting for care and they are waiting longer than ever before, often in pain and distress. Our local health care staff at West Mid and across the borough worked heroically throughout the pandemic to keep us all safe and they went above and beyond to provide life-saving care. This hospital backlog is not their fault- it is the fault of Governments across the last decade who have failed to invest in our NHS.
As the Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries admits, a decade of mismanagement left the NHS “wanting and inadequate” when Covid struck, and patients are now left to wait too long as a result. Our NHS is being stretched beyond capacity, yet the Government is asleep at the wheel.
Our NHS is crying out for a change in government to give us the fresh start we need.’’