Latest NHS Waiting Time Statistics Show We Must Vote Leave

Commenting on the release of the latest NHS waiting time statistics, doctor and ex-minister Andrew Murrison MP said:

‘Our NHS is under pressure from increasing demand and the fact that we have finite resources. If we Vote Leave we can spend some of the money we set aside for Brussels on the NHS. The extra £100 million a week for the NHS after we Vote Leave would be a big boost, meaning more doctors, more nurses and more hospital beds. Outside of the EU we can spend our money on our priorities and take back control of our borders, economy and democracy. To do that we need to Vote Leave on 23 June.”

• The statistics show significant increases in NHS waiting times in England.

• If we Vote Leave, we will spend an additional £100 million per week on the NHS, paid for by our savings from the EU budget.

• The NHS is under pressure due to uncontrolled migration. ‘Rising demand’ is one of the main reasons for the NHS’s perilous financial situation.

The statistics show significant increases in NHS waiting times in England.

In April 2016, there were 3.603 million patients waiting for treatment, up from 3.503 million in March 2016. It is up from 3.023 million in April 2015. This is likely an underestimate: ‘Factoring in estimates based on the latest data submitted for each missing trust suggests the total number of RTT patients waiting to start treatment at the end of April 2016 may have been just under 3.8 million patients‘.

Waiting times have increased over the last year. The median time for patients waiting to start treatment was 6.6 weeks, up from 5.9 weeks in April 2015.

In April 2016, 302,908 patients were waiting for treatment for longer than 18 weeks, up from 201,424 in April 2015. This is an increase of 50.4%. This is contrary to patients’ rights. The Department of Health states that: ‘Patients have a right to start consultant-led treatment within 18 weeks of referral or request an offer of alternative providers that can start their treatment sooner. The NHS must take all reasonable steps to meet patients’ requests’.

If we Vote Leave, we will spend an additional £100 million per week on the NHS, paid for by our savings from the EU budget.

The NHS is in need of more money. In 2015-2016, NHS providers in England recorded a deficit of £2.45 billion.

If we Vote Leave, we will spend an additional £100 million per week on the NHS by 2020, paid for by ending the UK’s £19.1 billion contribution to the EU budget each year. Leading Vote Leave figures Michael Gove, Boris Johnson and Gisela Stuart have all committed to do this.

This will mean the NHS will only have to make 1.5%, not 2% net efficiency savings as planned in the Five Year Forward View, much closer to the NHS’s historical productivity improvements.

The NHS is under pressure due to uncontrolled migration. ‘Rising demand’ is one of the main reasons for the NHS’s perilous financial situation.

In the financial year 2015-2016, NHS providers experienced a record NHS deficit of £2.45 billion. NHS Improvement has stated: ‘Rising demand, especially for urgent and emergency care… continued to add significant cost pressures to the sector’.

The Chief Executive of NHS England, Simon Stevens, has admitted this is the case, stating: ‘Demand is continuing to rise. The NHS is looking after more patients and looking after them better each year. And we’re doing that in the context of a – five years into the deepest slowdown in funding growth that we’ve had because of the need to dig ourselves out of the effects of the recession for the British economy’.

This puts pressure on accident and emergency services: ‘The number of patients who waited longer than four hours on a trolley for a bed in 2015/16 increased by 26.3% to 387,809, compared to 2014/15’.

Between 2005 and 2014, there were 475,935 live births to mothers who were EU citizens.  The number of births to EU mothers rose from 24,942 in 2005 to 64,067 in 2014, an increase of 157%). This is the equivalent of adding a city the size of Manchester to the UK population (population is 503,100) . With the estimated cost of maternity care in the NHS being £2,800, the cost of providing NHS services to those families could be over £1.33bn.