The hospital backlog in England has gone up slightly over the past month, latest NHS figures show. The waiting list hit 7.57 million at the end of April, up from 7.54 million the previous month. The numbers waiting for treatment has been a key election issue after the prime minister made it one of his five priorities for government.
There had been signs the waiting list was coming down. But despite the rise, it is still lower than the September peak of 7.77 million.
More than 300,000 of the waits have been for longer than a year. In many respects the rise in the number of waits is not surprising. The size of the waiting list has in the past fluctuated month-by-month.
And modelling always predicted that once the rapid rises seen since the pandemic hit stopped, there would be a period where the waiting list would remain pretty flat. But in the early weeks of this election campaign, Rishi Sunak has been claiming the waiting list has been falling.
Source: BBC
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