UK falling behind other countries when it comes to hospital waits – report

The UK is falling behind other high-income countries due to long waits for hospital care, a new report suggests.

The Health Foundation said that the UK is among the “poorest performing countries” when it comes to hospital-based care.

A decade ago, the UK was one of the best nations for people seeing hospital specialists in less than four weeks.

But it “slipped from being one of the better-performing nations in 2013 to one of the worst in 2023”, according to new analysis by the think tank.

The Commonwealth Fund’s International Health Policy Survey, which has been running for nearly two decades, saw adults from 10 high income countries, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Sweden, Switzerland, the US and the UK, asked about their experiences using a range of services including hospital care, GP support and dentistry.

The 2023 survey saw 21,000 people were asked their opinions including 3,361 adults in the UK.

Analysis of the data by the Health Foundation found that the UK has some of the longest reported waiting times to see a specialist and, alongside Canada, has the largest proportion of people waiting one year or more for an appointment.

The latest official figures show the waiting list for routine hospital treatment in England has risen for the third month in a row.

An estimated 7.62 million treatments were waiting to be carried out at the end of June, relating to 6.39 million patients – up slightly from 7.60 million treatments and 6.37 million patients at the end of May.

The list hit a record high in September 2023 with 7.77 million treatments and 6.50 million patients.

Some 2,621 patients in England had been waiting more than 18 months to start routine treatment at the end of June and there were 58,024 patients who had been waiting more than 65 weeks to start treatment.

A total of 302,693 people in England had been waiting more than 52 weeks to start routine hospital treatment at the end of June.

And some 302,693 people in England had been waiting more than 52 weeks to start routine hospital treatment at the end of June, down slightly from 307,500 at the end of May.

The Government and NHS England have set the ambition of eliminating all waits of more than a year by March 2025.

The Health Foundation’s analysis found that the UK is among the better-performing countries for people reporting access to same- or next-day GP appointments.

But the survey also highlighted concerns about access and cost of dentistry.

“The findings suggest that pressures on health systems are not unique to the UK, but the cumulative impacts of the pandemic and below-average spending growth have left UK health services in a more precarious state than those in most other surveyed countries,” according to the the Health Foundation report.

Ruth Thorlby, assistant director of policy at the Health Foundation, said: “These findings show the UK consistently coming near the bottom of the pack on people’s experience of healthcare compared to other high-income countries.

“It sheds yet more light on just how much work the Government has to do to get the NHS back on its feet.

“The combined effect of the pandemic and below average spending growth has left the NHS in a fragile state.

“The Government is right to prioritise bringing down waiting lists, but that can only be done with a concerted effort to improve primary care and ensuring good coordination between hospitals and GPs.

“National and local health leaders also need to be vigilant against creeping costs denying people access to healthcare.

“Nowhere is this more apparent than dental care where too many people are avoiding treatment due to costs.

“If these trends continue, the risk is that more and more people, particularly from deprived communities, will delay seeking care, which could store up more health problems in the future.

“There are no quick fixes, but the NHS can recover with the right mix of policy change, innovation and investment.”

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: “We inherited a broken NHS and it is unacceptable that so many people are waiting longer than needed for care.

“It is our mission to get the health service back on its feet and build an NHS fit for the future. We know that waiting lists are too high, and it is one of the reasons the Health and Social Care Secretary ordered a full independent investigation into the state of the NHS to lay bare the scale of the problem.

“We will tackle head on the biggest issues gripping the NHS by delivering an extra 40,000 appointments every week and learning from good practice across the country, taking the best of the NHS to the rest of the NHS.”

Conservative former health secretary Victoria Atkins, who now serves as shadow health secretary, said: “Despite our progress in tackling the longest waits in England, Labour’s failures in Wales and the SNP’s in Scotland have dragged Britain down the international rankings.”