The newly-appointed health secretary, Wes Streeting, has ordered an independent investigation into NHS performance in England, saying that the investigation must uncover the hard truths about what is a broken service. The waiting list for NHS hospital care has risen to 7.6 million, according to latest figures, it is second month it has grown and whilst still lower than the September peak of 7.77 million, it highlights the significant challenge facing the NHS. Streeting has written in the Sun about how the investigation will be led by NHS surgeon and independent peer, Lord Ara Darzi, and hopes it will inform the forthcoming 10-year plan for the NHS. Streeting has said that the NHS can be turned around, but we must diagnose the problem first. He goes on to say that the NHS is broken and describes personal stories that he heard during the election campaign from people across the country who have been let down because of the state of the health service.
A&E waiting times and cancer care are a long-way short of their targets and have not been met for over eight years in England. The backlog is far from the only problem, with waiting times in A&E and for cancer care also a concern. In June, one in four patients waited longer than four hours in A&E, and a third of cancer patients did not start treatment within 62 days of being referred. The health Secretary has asked Lord Darzi, who has acted as an adviser and minister to the Labour governments of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, to report back by September. NHS England chief executive, Amanda Pritchard, has welcomed the investigation and stated that whilst frontline NHS staff are “doing an incredible job despite the huge pressures”, patients are not always getting the high-quality care they need.
The investigation until September threatens to engulf Downing Street in a renewed political crisis over NHS waiting lists. Despite recent months marking the highest-paying month on record for the NHS in England, with nearly 300,000 operations performed in May alone, waits for treatment have increased. Furthermore, NHS trusts are predicting that the number of people awaiting surgery alone could surpass 10 million in England by 2024.
Last week, NHS Providers, which represents hospitals and other healthcare organisations, said that the NHS backlog could take five years to clear at a cost of up to £10bn. Meanwhile, reports at the weekend suggested that Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, and Chancellor, Rishi Sunak, are considering increasing national insurance contributions, in part to improve the performance of the NHS
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