NHS ready listing lastly begins to come back down after backlog elevated for over a decade

The NHS waiting list may have finally started to come down.

The backlog of appointments fell by 70,000 last month in England raising hopes the NHS could see the first sustained drop outside of the pandemic in over a decade. The waiting list for non-urgent care fell to its lowest level for five months with 7.57 million treatments waiting to be carried out at the end of September. Some patients are waiting for more than one operation but the total number waiting was also down, dropping 77,000 from 6.42 million to 6.34 million

The appointment waiting list is down from 7.64 million at the end of August and are the lowest figures since April 2024. The waiting list hit a record high in September 2023, with 7.77 million treatments, and has been up and down since then. Waits for operations have been on an upward trajectory since 2010 when the Tories came to power when the elective waiting list in England stood at 2.5 million appointments.

Health Secretary Wes Streeting said: “It is welcome to finally see progress start to be made on the backlog. Since we ended the strikes, we have been ramping up delivery of an extra 40,000 extra appointments every week. The extra investment in the Budget for new surgical hubs and scanners, plus the reforms announced this week to drive up productivity, will cut waiting lists further and get patients seen faster.”

Many constitutional targets such as the four-hour A&E standard are still way off being hit and health chiefs insist the NHS is busier than ever going into winter. Some 73.0% of patients were admitted, transferred or discharged from A&E departments within four hours in October. This was down on the 74.2% in September but way off the constitutional standard of at least 95%. Average ambulance response times for heart attacks and strokes were 42 minutes in October, up from 36 minutes for category 2 calls in September and the worst monthly average so far in 2024.

Patricia Marquis, director of the Royal College of Nursing for England, said: “Today’s figures show a corridor care disaster is unfolding in front of our eyes. Near record numbers are languishing on trolleys after being deemed sick enough to be admitted, whilst thousands cannot be discharged due to a lack of community care. The cold weather hasn’t properly arrived, and this situation threatens only to worsen.”

All three national cancer waiting time targets were missed in September and performance on all three targets was worse than in the previous month. There were 2.36 million A&E attendances last month, 6% more than the previous busiest October and coming after the busiest summer and September. Call handlers faced more 999 calls than any month so far this year at 1.187 million and 3% more than the same time last year.

Professor Sir Stephen Powis, NHS England’s medical director, said: “The NHS is going into winter under more pressure and busier than ever before. While we saw 10% more A&E patients within four hours than last year despite the record demand, it is vital that people help us out by only going to A&E or calling 999 in a life-threatening emergency, using 111 for other conditions, and getting their Covid, flu and RSV vaccinations if eligible. While we continue to treat record numbers and deal with record demand, it is clear that is still much further to go to return performance to the levels patients should expect.”

It comes after the Mirror reported hospital bosses’ warning that the logjam in primary care is seeing more people turn up in A&Es. Two fifths of GPs in England are taking part in a work-to-rule “collective action” limiting the number of patients they see a day and refusing extra work from hospitals which are not strictly part of their contracts.

Rory Deighton, acute director at the NHS Confederation, said: “These figures show that the NHS continues to be facing record demand. It is very concerning that the health service is running so hot ahead of what is expected to be another very difficult winter.”