Government Concedes NHS Waiting Lists Will Rise Further Before Easing, Turns to Private Capacity

A health minister has told the public, in plain terms, that the NHS waiting list is going to get longer before it gets shorter. Speaking to LBC's Nick Ferrari, Maria Caulfield said the number of people waiting for treatment in England, currently 7.47 million, is expected to climb a little further in the coming months, reach a peak, and only then begin to fall.

The figure is not a projection of something far off. Numbers released the previous month showed the list stood at 7.47 million at the end of May, the highest since records began in 2007. Caulfield said the country was almost at the peak, but that it would likely go slightly higher. She framed the candour as deliberate: the government, she said, was being honest that the total would rise a little more before it came down, and that announcements like this one were meant to put capacity and infrastructure in place now.

The announcement itself centres on 13 new community diagnostic centres across England, which the government says will carry out an additional 742,000 scans, checks and tests each year. Eight of the 13 will be run by private operators, which will employ the staff and own the buildings, though the government says they will function much like their NHS counterparts and remain free at the point of need. Five sites in the South West, at Redruth, Bristol, Torbay, Yeovil and Weston-super-Mare, will be operated by the diagnostics company InHealth. Other private sites are planned for Southend, Northampton and south Birmingham, joining four private centres already running in Brighton, north Solihull, Oxford and Salford. The five new NHS-run sites are in Hornchurch, Skegness, Lincoln, Nottingham and Stoke-on-Trent.

The government has pledged to open 160 such centres by 2030. There are currently 114 operating, which have carried out 4.6 million tests, checks and scans since July 2021. Alongside the openings, ministers are relaxing the rules on how NHS contracts are awarded. Under the provider selection regime, contracts can be granted with greater freedom and without tendering. Caulfield, speaking to Sky News, insisted taxpayers would still get good value for money.

Other measures come from the Elective Recovery Taskforce, set up in December and chaired by health minister Will Quince. It will use data from private providers to identify where they could take on more NHS patients, and will examine using the private sector to train junior NHS staff. Quince said 18-month waits had been virtually eliminated and that the steps would give patients more choice over where and when they are treated. Health Secretary Steve Barclay said the NHS must use every available resource, and that independent capacity would let patients reach diagnosis sooner and begin treatment earlier.

Labour's objection is that the government is not going far enough. The party claims 331,000 patients could have been treated since January 2022 if private capacity had been used more fully. Shadow health secretary Wes Streeting said patients were paying the price and that no one should wait in pain while hospital beds sit empty. He said a Labour government would use spare private capacity to get patients seen faster.

The political backdrop is strained. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak vowed earlier this year to bring waiting lists down, but last month said industrial action had made that more challenging. Junior doctors are preparing another four-day strike on August 11 in the pay dispute, and consultants are due to walk out for 48 hours on August 24.

Experts urge caution about leaning on the private sector. Helen Buckingham, director of strategy at the Nuffield Trust, warned the scheme must be carefully designed so the NHS is not left with only the most complex cases and without the staff or capacity to treat them. Payments to independent providers, she said, also need careful thought. More independent involvement will boost capacity quicker, she added, but it does not fix the root of the problem or give the NHS the resources to meet long-term demand. The next monthly figures will show whether the peak Caulfield describes is arriving on schedule.