Swift corrections to waiting list errors

27 September 2024

Within two hours of receiving requests from us, both the Mirror and MailOnline corrected recent errors that they had published about NHS waiting lists. Yesterday, The Guardian corrected an article, and earlier this month The Observer also corrected an editorial containing similar errors.

The latest data for June 2024 shows there were 7.6 million cases on the NHS waiting list in England and around 6.4 million cases (as some people will be waiting for more than one thing). 

All of these mistakes were picked up by Full Fact’s AI tools. These tools are continuing to detect misreporting of NHS waiting list data, typically when figures for people and cases are confused.We’re grateful to all newspapers that promptly correct significant inaccuracies.

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