Rishi Sunak has said he is dissatisfied by failure to bring down NHS waiting lists, acknowledging that he had made less progress than on his other priorities.
Sunak accepted a slower turnaround than on the rest of his five priorities, but insisted there were now signs that the “the plan is working”.
He urged junior doctors to accept a pay offer that he said was “most generous for anyone in the public sector anywhere”, as he blamed a campaign of strikes for failure to bring down waiting lists.
The NHS waiting list for routine treatment and operations stands at 7.6 million, down slightly on a peak of almost 7.8 million but still almost 400,000 higher than January 2023, when Sunak pledged to reduce waits.
Cutting waits was one of the five priorities set out by the prime minister at the start of last year — the others being to bring down inflation, grow the economy, reduce debt and stop small boat crossings.
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While halving inflation is the only pledge to have been unambiguously met, Sunak told LBC this morning: “Of all the areas that I set out, when it comes to the NHS, that’s the place where we’ve not made as much progress as I would have liked”.
He acknowledged that “the waiting list today is higher than it was when I took office”, but argued: “Obviously it was impacted by the strikes, and we were actually seeing progress before then.”
Last week NHS consultants accepted a pay deal that will raise some doctors’ pay rise by 19 per cent, and Sunak today used this to increase pressure on junior doctors who are still threatening strikes over a request for a 35 per cent pay rise.
“We’ve just now reached a settlement with the consultants which is very positive, so now it’s just the junior doctors who are the ones remaining out on strike. I’d say come back around the table,” he said. “We’ve resolved this with everybody else and we’ve put very fair offers on the table. The offer for the junior doctors is the most generous for anyone in the public sector anywhere and I would urge them to do it.”
Sunak said he was “heartened” by recent falls in waiting lists, saying: “The waiting lists have now fallen for four months in a row. We haven’t been suffering as much industrial action over that time.” He insisted: “The plan is working. The last four months show that the numbers are all now starting to come down, and if we stick with it, I can make sure that we get everyone the help that they need.”
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NHS leaders have said that dealing with repeated campaigns of industrial action has taken time and effort away from routine treatment. According to some estimates strikes have increased waiting lists by about 200,000.
During a live phone-in, Sunak was challenged on NHS delays by a caller from south Wales who had been waiting for more than four years for treatment and the prime minister took the opportunity to draw a “very clear contrast” between his own record and that of the Labour-run Welsh health service.
“If you look at what’s happening in Wales right now, in contrast to the NHS in England which were responsible for, average wait times in Wales are longer,” he said. “That is the reality of Labour in power.”
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Sunak argued: “We’ve virtually eliminated people waiting two years and made enormous progress on one and a half year waits in England [but] there are still thousands and thousands of people in Wales who are waiting the longest amount of time … The contrast in how Labour’s running the NHS in Wales would demonstrate you that our plan in England is actually working”.
