Waiting lists are unlikely to fall before mid-2024, analysis finds

The NHS has made some progress on reducing the care backlog but is unlikely to see a meaningful drop in waiting times before the middle of next year, the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) has said.1

The IFS analysis reviewed the year since the government unveiled its NHS backlog plan and found that the NHS had almost eliminated waiting times of over two years, and its target of eliminating waits of 18 months or more by April “remains within reach.” However, it warned that the health service was far from reaching the government’s headline ambition to deliver 30% more elective activity by 2024-25 than was achieved pre-pandemic.

When the aim was announced health leaders were quick to highlight the lack of workforce planning related to delivering it.2 Since then the IFS has found that, in the 10 months since the plan’s publication, the NHS treated 5% fewer patients from the waiting list than over the same period in 2019.

The institute said that, for waiting lists to start falling meaningfully this year, the NHS would need either a “truly remarkable increase” in treatment capacity or an “unexpectedly low” number of patients joining waiting lists.

The report said, “As it stands, our judgement is that this is highly unlikely to be achieved—not least due to the lingering effects of covid-19 and other pressures on the system. As a result, waiting lists are—in our view—unlikely to start falling rapidly any time soon. Instead, our central expectation is that waiting lists will more or less flatline over the next year, and fall only gradually from mid-2024.”