“Hospital waiting times fell year-on-year under the last Labour Government but have risen month-on-month under this Government,” Ed Miliband, Prime Minister's Questions, 27 April 2011.



“[Waiting times] been broadly stable over the last couple of years, that is the fact.” David Cameron, Prime Minister's Questions 27 April 2011.

Last week the King's Fund released figures that showed the number of inpatients waiting longer than 18 weeks from referral to treatment stood at a three year high.

This release proved to be politically contentious, with the Government challenging the King's Fund for using non-adjusted figures, while also arguing that waiting times remained at a historic low. Full Fact took a closer look at NHS waiting time stats then, but the debate has been reignited this afternoon. 

At Prime Ministers Questions, David Cameron and Ed Miliband clashed over what had been happening to waiting times – so a closer look at the stats seemed in order.

The data on median waiting times for 'completed admitted pathways' is available from the Department of Health, broken down into adjusted and non-adjusted figures. The adjusted figures take into account “periods of delay introduced as a result of patients turning down offers of admissions made with reasonable notice.”

The figures show that following a steep decline up to March 2008, waiting times for inpatients from referral to treatment have remained relatively stable. The small rises shown at the start of each year is reflective of a cyclical, seasonal trend that sees more admissions during the winter months. 

While waiting times have remained relatively stable over the last few years, it is the case that increased median waiting times for January and February of 2011 are slightly above the seasonal January and February increases of 2008 and 2009. 

Looking at the “month-on-month” rises mentioned by Ed Miliband, there is an increasing proportion of inpatients waiting more than 18 weeks for treatments. The graph below shows this, although increases were not seen in every month since the Government was formed. More information on this can be found in our previousfactcheck.

But what to make of Ed Miliband's claim that waiting times fell under Labour year-on-year? Looking at median waiting times, it appears most of the fall actually occurred in one year of the available data, rather than a steady annual decline.

But of course the figures only go back to March 2007; to fully assess the Labour Leader's claim, statistics covering more of Labour's time in office would be needed.

Full Fact contacted the Department or Health but were told that earlier data was not available. We will update if we are able to track down any more information.

Waiting times are also assessed in terms of the proportion of people having to wait over 18 weeks for treatment. Yet again on this metric, while the figures did fall significantly in the years covered, much of the fall was in the first year.

Conclusion

David Cameron is right to argue that median NHS referral to treatment times have remained relatively stable over the last few years.

Likewise Ed Miliband is justified in pointing to the fall in waiting times under Labour. However the fact that there has been little change since March 2008 raises questions about how far the decline can be viewed as 'year-on-year'. To come to a firmer conclusion about Labour's time in office would require more data. 

Whether the slightly higher than average seasonal rise in January and February is indicative of the beginning of a more substantial rise in waiting times yet to come can only be speculated on. 

In our last factcheck on waiting times, we reported that Nigel Edwards of the NHS Confederation had said on the Today programme that the trend may be "a little blip" but equally could constitute a warning sign of a further rise in waiting times.

On the same programme, David Flory Deputy Chief Executive of the NHS had said the “report shows that they have remained broadly stable over a long period of time... we do see fluctuations.”

UPDATE

One of our readers has now pointed us in the direction of some older Department of Health inpatient waiting times from 1993 to 2008.

The graph below shows that when considering both median and mean inpatient waiting times, they have been falling year on year for most of Labour’s period in Government. This sustained downward trend started in 1997 and ended in 2008, since which time waiting times have remained relatively stable.

Ed Miliband was therefore more or less right to argue that waiting times had seen year on year declines under Labour, except for the period beyond 2008 when they were stable.