NHS Recovery Plan ‘Stalled’ as Waiting Times Remain High, Report Warns
Despite billions in investment, the National Health Service has failed to meet its promised targets for reducing patient waiting times, according to a damning new report from the Public Accounts Committee (PAC). The findings cast significant doubt on the Labour government’s ability to deliver on its key election pledge to “fix the NHS” and restore 18-week waiting times for hospital care by 2029.
The influential cross-party PAC’s report, released today, reveals that improvements in speeding up tests and treatment have “stalled.” Critically, the committee also leveled criticism at Health Secretary Wes Streeting and Labour leader Keir Starmer for initiating a costly and unplanned reorganization of the NHS in England, warning it could jeopardize patient care and echoing the mismanagement seen with the HS2 rail project.
Currently, a significantly larger number of patients are waiting longer than the promised 18 weeks for non-urgent hospital care – with some facing waits exceeding a year – and over six weeks for essential diagnostic scans like X-rays, the report found. The total elective care waiting list stands at 7.4 million clinical pathways, though this represents a decrease of approximately 220,000 since Labour assumed power in July 2024.
The PAC’s conclusions are likely to raise concerns within government, particularly given that reducing NHS waiting times is consistently identified as a top priority for the public. Recent polling data also indicates that Reform UK has surpassed Labour in voter confidence regarding healthcare policies.
The report’s pessimistic assessment sharply contrasts with the more optimistic outlook presented last week by Streeting, who asserted that “the NHS is on the road to recovery.” He highlighted a reduction of over 200,000 on the 18-week waiting list since Labour’s election victory, alongside improvements in ambulance response times, cancer diagnosis rates, and an increase of 2,500 GPs.
“This report should set off alarm bells in No 10,” stated Helen Morgan, the Liberal Democrat health spokesperson, describing the situation as “a shambles.” The Liberal Democrats further characterized the NHS’s efforts to address widespread delays as similarly chaotic.
Rachel Power, CEO of the Patients Association charity, emphasized the long-standing frustration of patients, stating that the PAC’s findings “lay bare what patients have felt for over a decade: despite billions being spent, the NHS is still not delivering the timely care people desperately need.”
The PAC’s analysis focused on the progress of NHS England’s elective recovery plan, initially published in 2022 under the previous Conservative government, which aimed to significantly reduce waiting times by March 2025. The committee discovered that, as of July, 192,000 individuals had been waiting at least a year for care, despite a commitment to eliminate such lengthy waits altogether by March 2025.
The Labour government’s decision to restructure the NHS in England, a policy reversal from prior statements made by Streeting in opposition, was deemed “not prudent” by the PAC. The restructuring was initiated without allocated funding or a comprehensive impact assessment, mirroring “poor practice” observed in the HS2 and new hospitals programs.
The PAC also underscored the potential harm caused by prolonged waiting times. “Every unnecessary day that a patient spends on an NHS waiting list is both one of increased anxiety for that person’s unresolved case and, if they are undiagnosed, a steady increasing of risk to their life,” explained Clive Betts, the committee’s deputy chair and a Labour MP.
Siva Anandaciva, head of policy at the King’s Fund thinktank, added that the report reinforces a growing body of evidence suggesting the UK is falling behind other nations in its recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite being a top priority for the Prime Minister, achieving meaningful progress is proving to be “neither quick nor easy.”
Labour’s commitment to “build an NHS fit for the future” was a central tenet of its election manifesto. Restoring the 18-week guarantee for planned hospital care – a standard previously met under the last Labour government – is a key component of this pledge. However, analyses from the Institute for Fiscal Studies, the Health Foundation, and the Institute for Government have raised doubts about the feasibility of achieving this goal.
Streeting did not issue a direct response to the PAC’s report. A spokesperson for the Department of Health and Social Care defended the government’s record, stating that they “inherited a broken NHS, with waiting lists soaring and elective services in dire need of modernisation.” The spokesperson asserted that the government has taken “immediate and robust action” to address waiting lists and modernize elective care, noting that waiting lists have fallen for the first time in 15 years and that over 5 million additional appointments have been delivered. The department claims to be “delivering the change the NHS is crying out for.”
