Only Blair / Brown government managed to reduce waiting times, but that strategy won’t work for Rishi Sunak
The worrying and in some cases dangerously long waits for NHS care now being faced by so many patients are a headache for the government, and a potential opportunity for the opposition.
Stories about delays getting an operation, hospital bed, GP appointment, ambulance or entry into an A&E unit from the back of an ambulance make headlines almost daily. Waits for non-urgent hospital treatment are not just the longest on record. They also affect unprecedented numbers of patients – 7.2 million in England alone and about another 2 million in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
