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NHS England is in a ‘full-blown crisis’, health bosses have been warned as a new damn report from MPs says the NHS will miss two key targets in its COVID recovery plan.
A report by the cross-party Public Accounts Committee warns against this NHS England will not meet its objective of reducing the number of people waiting more than 62 days for their first cancer treatment after urgent referral to a GPCOVID horizontal.
The Commission also described NHS England’s path to increasing planned care activity to 129% of pre-pandemic levels by 2024/25 as “unachievable”.
The committee said the COVID backlog plan presented by NHS England and the government last year was “falling short of expectations”.
He described the cancer waiting time situation as “unacceptable” and urged the government and NHS England to do “whatever is required” to bring levels back to an acceptable standard.
Commenting on the report, Dame Meg Hillier MP, chair of the committee, said: “Despite a substantial cash injection to help with the recovery from the pandemic, the NHS is in full swing with all indicators pointing in the wrong direction. direction.
“Based on the evidence we have received, the NHS will fall short of the recovery plan targets and that means health, longevity and quality of life indicators for people in this country will continue to fall backwards.
“It’s simply disgraceful and totally unacceptable in a nation as rich as ours.”
But NHS bosses say the report “does not take into account the significant progress made by NHS staff” on the plan – agreed with the government – despite “record pressures being seen across the healthcare system”.
They also said a record number of patients had come in for checkups and screenings, while the government said it had opened 92 local diagnostic centers with 19 more scheduled to open this year.
One particular area of concern raised in the commission’s report was the waiting time for cancer treatment, which was described as “particularly concerning”.
NHS England’s target is that 85% of people who are referred urgently by their GP and are diagnosed with cancer start treatment within 62 days.
However, according to the report, only 62% of patients achieved this goal within a year.
More than 8,000 people, or about 11% of patients, waited more than 104 days between urgent referral and first treatment.
“It is now clear that the goal of reducing the number of people waiting more than 62 days after an urgent referral from a doctor to pre-pandemic levels will not be reached by March 2023.” the report warns.
The committee also warned that NHS England is on track to surpass the 2025 target of no patient having to wait more than 52 weeks for planned care.
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The report said being so “off track” meant more patients were waiting “too long” and added that cancer waiting times were “at their worst on record”.
NHS England bosses have been called on to explain how they spent £14bn of extra funding to help clear the country’s health backlog and improve cancer services in the wake of the COVID pandemic.
The NHS England three-year recovery plan, agreed with the government last year, includes targets to tackle the extra backlog of cancer treatment and planned care, while shifting focus to the fight against COVID.
Part of the plan includes creating new surgical centers and community diagnostic centers and using GPs to manage elective care cases instead of sending patients to hospital doctors.
