NHS waiting lists forecast to remain higher than pre-pandemic levels until 2027
NHS waiting lists are unlikely to drop to pre-pandemic levels even by the end of 2027, a report by the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) has said.
Experts have forecast how far the current 7.6 million waiting list is likely to fall under the next Government using different scenarios that involve varying levels of NHS productivity.
But even the most optimistic prediction puts the waiting list at 5.2 million by the end of 2027, which is 600,000 higher than it was in December 2019.
The authors do not differentiate between who might lead the next government, with current polling suggesting Labour will win a general election, but conclude that either way more funding and improved productivity will be needed to cut the waiting list to below pre-pandemic levels.
A more realistic, “central” estimate suggests the number waiting for treatment will reduce to only 6.5 million, after rising slightly during the first half of 2024, while a “pessimistic” outlook claims the waiting list will still be 7.6 million in almost four years time.
The modelling estimates the number of people treated each year versus the number who join the waiting list. The best case scenario sees treatment levels outpace new joiners, while the worst sees the treatments matched by the number of people joining, keeping the overall list the same.
The IFS report said Rishi Sunak, the Prime Minister, had failed to meet his pledge to cut the NHS waiting list, which is more than half a million bigger than when he made the commitment after a year of doctors’ strikes.
Hospitals to miss targets on longest waits
The waiting list fell for three consecutive months at the end of 2023, from a record high of 7.8 million, but the IFS said the NHS is still set to miss its “stretching” targets of treating those who have been waiting the longest.
The report said it was “very unlikely” to eliminate people waiting 65 weeks or longer by this March - the latest figures for December put this at almost 100,000 - and “unlikely” to eliminate the number of people waiting one year – which stands at 337,000 – from lists by March 2025.
Max Warner, a research economist and an author of the report, said: “The next government may well inherit a falling elective NHS waiting list in England, but even with a trend pointing in the right direction, waiting lists will still be far higher than they have been – and long waiting times are unlikely to go away any time soon.”
‘Eye-wateringly tough’ choices ahead
He said the Government needs “to dedicate additional funding to the health service and to find ways to increase NHS productivity”, which, without tax rises, “could require some eye-wateringly tough choices elsewhere”.
Mark Franks, the director of welfare at the Nuffield Foundation, said the next government “must also be transparent about the magnitude of the challenge, the necessary trade-offs and the reality that, even under the most optimistic projections, it will take many years for waiting lists to revert to the levels seen at the beginning of the last decade”.
Meanwhile, new analysis of A&E waiting times by the Office for National Statistics (ONS), found that the proportion of patients waiting longer than four hours at emergency departments over the last decade was higher in Labour-run Wales than in England and Scotland.
All three nations have seen an increase in people waiting for at least four hours in A&E but the levels were highest in Wales in every month between January 2013 and August 2022, and most months since.
The Department for Health was asked for comment.
