Wes Streeting overstated the number of people on the NHS waiting list under the Conservatives

The health secretary, Wes Streeting, and the Leader of the House of Commons, Lucy Powell, both overstated the number of people on the NHS England waiting list when speaking in Parliament last month.

The ministers described a figure for the number of cases on the waiting list as the number of people—a common error that we’ve seen repeatedly from politicians and in the media in the past year.

The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) acknowledged the distinction during discussions with Full Fact. It explained that it was concerned by the risk of confusion if the number of patients and the number of cases were used in different contexts, but told us that it would recommend saying “cases where a patient is waiting” in future.

Full Fact has asked Mr Streeting and Ms Powell to correct the record.

We spotted these claims with the help of Full Fact’s AI tools.

What the health secretary said

In the Commons on 11 February, Mr Streeting said: "This Government inherited a waiting list with a staggering 7.6 million people on it. Since July, that waiting list has already been reduced by almost 145,000.”

This is not quite right. The NHS England waiting list for elective treatment stood at about 7.6 million cases at the end of July 2024, involving about 6.4 million people. These totals had fallen by about 143,000 cases and 111,000 people as of the data for November 2024, which was the latest available when Mr Streeting was speaking.

As we’ve written many times before, there are always more cases than people on the list, because some people are waiting for treatment for more than one thing.

The NHS England referral-to-treatment waiting list, which is what people usually mean by the “NHS waiting list”, does not include everyone who is waiting for an NHS service.

Mr Streeting has previously described the number of patients and cases awaiting treatment correctly, for example a month earlier when he wrote in the foreword to NHS England’s Elective Reform Plan: “Over 6 million people are currently on a waiting list, waiting for over 7 million episodes of care, like a test or an operation.” He has also described the figures correctly in Parliament, for instance in a written answer on 23 July last year.

We’ve seen Labour politicians correct themselves on this point previously—for example, Josh MacAlister MP corrected a similar claim he made in October.

NHS England also reviewed and corrected one of its reports last year after Full Fact pointed out a similar error.

It’s crucial that ministers use accurate figures when talking about a matter of huge public interest, like NHS waiting lists.

Guidance from the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR) says: “Intelligent transparency should be the default approach to communicating all statistics, data, and wider analysis. Everyone in government has an important role to play in achieving this by...Aiding understanding and preventing misinterpretation through clear presentation and communication of statistics and data.”

The Ministerial Code says: “It is of paramount importance that ministers give accurate and truthful information to Parliament, correcting any inadvertent error at the earliest opportunity.”

What the Leader of the House of Commons said

On 13 February, Ms Powell said: "The figures are shocking: over seven million people are, like my hon. Friend’s constituent, on NHS waiting lists.”

This isn’t quite right for the same reason. The latest data available when Ms Powell was speaking, for December 2024, showed there were about 7.5 million cases and 6.2 million people on the NHS England waiting list.

Full Fact approached Ms Powell’s office and her department for comment.

We’re also grateful to Sky News, which corrected a section of an article that made a similar mistake last month. That error was also spotted with the help of our AI tools.