NHS England wait times reach record high

The Prime Minister made cutting  NHS waiting lists one of his priorities for this year.

In January, Rishi Sunak promised that “lists will fall and people will get the care they need more quickly”.

But figures now suggest that the number of people in England waiting to start routine hospital treatment has risen to a new record high.

NHS England said that around 7.4 million people were waiting to start treatment at the end of April

That was up from 7.3 million in March.

Cancer waits are up too – with only 78 percent of patients seeing a specialist within 2 weeks of an urgent GP referral.

That’s far below the 93% target, with the royal college of radiologists warning that staff shortages across the UK are causing delays to care.

We’ve been speaking to a cancer patient about her care.