Today’s ONS data further exposes the difficulties many patients are experiencing getting NHS and GP treatment.
 
It finds that 9.7 million people in England (21% of all adults) are currently waiting for a hospital appointment, test, or to start receiving medical treatment through the NHS; 1.4 million people have been waiting for over a year.
 
The official NHS England waiting list stands at 7.6m, comprised of 6.3m individual patients waiting for treatment (with over 1m patients appearing on the waiting list more than once). The ONS survey suggests the actual numbers of people now waiting to access treatment on the NHS could be as much as 50% higher than reported by official waiting list data.
 
When it comes to getting a GP appointment, of those who had tried to get an appointment in the past month, 31% or 5.5 million people, said it was difficult or very difficult and of those who did make contact, over one in 10 (12% or 1.9 million) said they were given an appointment over 2 weeks later and 20% (3.5 million) said their GP experience was poor or very poor.
 
Commenting on the data, Brett Hill, Head of Health & Protection at leading independent consultancy Broadstone, said: “While NHS waiting lists and difficulties accessing GP services are not new, this latest dataset re-iterates the huge pressures currently impacting healthcare in this country.
 
“Of particular concern is the wide gap between the data reported in NHS waiting lists and the findings of the ONS survey, which suggests the proportion of UK adults now waiting for medical treatment or advice is far higher than previously understood. With 21% of adults in England now waiting to access healthcare it highlights the huge problems for businesses when it comes to supporting the health of their employees and reducing sickness absence - an increasingly important C-suite issue.
 
“This is why we are now seeing record private healthcare admissions driven by insurance solutions as employers step into the healthcare gap and support their staff with a range of services that can help prevent and treat medical issues. Employers are also increasingly focused on ill health prevention and health screening programmes, which can identify risk factors or medical conditions at an early stage when they can be treated more easily and cost effectively.
 
“It is clear that the crisis in the NHS cannot be resolved overnight and so we expect demand and innovation in this market to continue growing, reshaping the way many workers receive their healthcare support in the future.”
 
https://www.ons.gov.uk/releases/experiencesofgppracticeaccessandnhswaitingtimes