The ‘dire’ state of NHS waiting lists was laid bare in fascinating detail today, with data showing patients in Wales are doing far worse than England.
Nearly one in 20 patients has had to wait more than a year for treatment in the Labor Party-run country.
It marks a fourfold increase in the space of a decade, illustrating the scale of the crisis, with some patients even cashing in on pensions and plundering family savings to go to the private sector in a bid to avoid long NHS queues.
By comparison, the equivalent figure for England is just 0.5 patients per 100.
Critics today warned that this is what the NHS could look like under a Labour-led government if Sir Keir Starmer’s party were to triumph at the general election.
Labor party leader Sir Keir Starmer and shadow health secretary Wes Streeting met patients and staff at Bassetlaw Hospital in Nottinghamshire to discuss Labour’s plan to reduce NHS waiting lists if voted into power.
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According to the analysis by the Office for National Statistics (ONS), The proportion of patients in Wales waiting more than a year for treatment peaked in August 2022 at 5.7 people per 100.
England, meanwhile, faced its own peak of just 0.8 in August 2021.
This analysis also found that as of March 2024 (according to the most recent data available), a total of 21.6 in 100 people are waiting for NHS treatment in Wales. In England the figure now stands at 13 per 100.
A Conservative Party spokesperson told MailOnline: ‘In Labour-run Wales, overall waiting lists are at a record high, with patients nine times more likely than those in England to wait more than a year for treatment .
‘The evidence is clear for all: where Labor is in charge of the NHS, patients are worse off.
“In contrast, the Conservatives’ bold action has virtually eliminated the longest waits of over eighteen months, and overall waitlists are falling at the fastest pace in more than a decade, excluding the pandemic.”
MailOnline has approached Labor for comment.
Same ONS data also suggested that ‘significantly’ more people were waiting for NHS treatment in Wales than in the rest of the UK.
Just under a third of respondents in Wales (29 percent) reported that they were currently waiting for an NHS waiting appointment, test or treatment between October 2023 and March 2024.
By comparison, this figure was a quarter in England and 22 percent in Scotland.
However, differences in the way data is collected in Scotland mean that waiting times of 52 weeks in the country are not comparable to England or Wales.
Instead, data is recorded for patients who are at different stages of treatment, such as waiting for a first outpatient appointment after a referral, or for admission for treatment as an inpatient or day case.
That’s because data from last year showed patients in Wales waited an average of five weeks longer for NHS treatment than in England.
Some Welsh patients even reported fleeing to England for treatment due to delays.
However, the latest figures from NHS England show that around 6.33 million patients in England were waiting for 7.57 million treatments at the end of April.
This is an increase compared to the 6.29 million patients and 7.54 million treatments at the end of March.
More than 300,000 people had been waiting for more than a year, compared to fewer than 2,000 before the pandemic.
Public satisfaction with the NHS has also fallen to its lowest level ever across Britain.
Less than one in four (24 percent) people were satisfied with healthcare in 2023, a decline of 5 percentage points from the previous year alone.
According to the latest findings from the ongoing British Social Attitudes Survey, more than half (52 percent) are now dissatisfied with the NHS, the highest percentage since the survey began.
The main reasons for dissatisfaction are waiting times for GP and hospital appointments (71 per cent), followed by staff shortages (54 per cent) and the government not spending enough on the NHS (47 per cent) – despite record investment.