Labour still confusing the number of people and cases on NHS waiting lists

The Labour candidate for High Peak in Derbyshire, Jon Pearce, has said there are “nearly 8 million people on NHS waiting lists”, in a post on X (formerly Twitter) that has also been shared by the shadow ministers Wes Streeting and Jonathan Reynolds.

As we’ve said many times before, including when Mr Streeting made a similar claim last week, this is not what NHS data shows. There are actually about 6.3 million people in the most recently published referral to treatment (RTT) data for NHS England, which is what claims about ”NHS waiting lists” or “the waiting list” usually refer to.

There are about 7.5 million cases on the RTT list, which may well be what Mr Pearce was talking about.

There are always more cases than people in the NHS data, because some people are awaiting treatment for more than one thing—although the estimated number of people wasn’t published until November 2023. Now that it is, we think politicians and the media should use the correct figure.

An important caveat here is that there are several different kinds of waiting list, so the RTT data doesn’t include everyone waiting for anything.

In April, the Office of National Statistics published the results of a survey, which suggested that almost 10 million adults in England were waiting for something on the NHS. 

We’ve approached Mr Pearce, Mr Streeting and Mr Reynolds for comment.