Chi Onwurah MP for Newcastle Central is highly concerned by the latest figures from the NHS which show that at the end of September 2021, there were 92,225 people on the waiting list at The Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. With 5,113 people waiting for more than one year for an appointment and 167 people waiting more than 2 years.
Chi said:
“ These figures show the very large number of people in need and indicate the enormous pressure on Newcastle Hospitals and all the staff at every level.
“ The Government is yet to publish its plan to address the vast NHS waiting list, with hospitals around the country already reporting unsustainable pressure and an inability to provide high quality care.
“Nationally, the NHS is short of 100,000 staff, including 7,000 doctors and 40,000 nurses. Yet in the Budget last month, the Chancellor failed to set out a plan to recruit, train, and retain the staff needed to solve this waiting list crisis.
This comes as the BBC report waiting times in A&E at the RVI have reached 9 hours for some patients.
Ms Onwurah believes the coming winter weeks are set to be the most challenging in history for the NHS. Highlighting the urgent need for Ministers to fix the stalling vaccination programme, resolve the immediate crisis in social care and bring forward a long term plan to recruit the health care staff our NHS desperately
She added:
“The doctors, nurses, and other health care staff in Newcastle Hospitals are doing amazing work, trying to see as many people as they can and provide quality care. But there’s only so much they can do after a decade of underfunding and without the staff numbers they need.
Chi has written to the Chief Executive of the Newcastle Hospitals Trust to ask for the latest figures on waiting times and to understand how she can best put pressure on the Government to address these issues
ENDS
Notes for Editors:
- Waiting times Source https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/statistical-work-areas/rtt-waiting-times/
- Population figure source: ONS Population estimates for the UK, England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland:
- BBC Report on A&E waiting times at the RVI: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-tyne-58992329.amp?
- In March 2020, at the outbreak of the Covid pandemic, there were 4,235,970 people on the NHS waiting list in England. Nationally, the standard of 92% of people seen within 18 weeks of a referral has not been met since 2016. However, the pandemic had a devastating effect on an already-fragile NHS, with the national waiting list is now 37.7 per cent higher than it was before Covid-19 hit the UK (an increase of 1,598,451 people). The current figure means that just over 1 in 10 people in England are on the NHS waiting list (10.3 per cent). Source: NHS data