Lib Dem leaflets confuse cases and people on the NHS waiting list

Readers have sent us leaflets from the Liberal Democrat candidates for St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire, and Bicester and Woodstock, which say that “7.7 million people are on the NHS waiting list”. 

As we’ve often said before, this isn’t quite right. 

We’re not quite sure when the leaflets were printed, but the latest data on waits for non-emergency care with NHS England—which is what people usually mean by “the NHS waiting list”—shows that about 6.3 million people were waiting at the end of January.

Between them, these people were waiting for about 7.6 million courses of treatment. There have never been more than about 6.5 million individuals on this waiting list, but because some people are awaiting treatment for more than one thing, the number of cases involving them is always higher.

NHS England did not publish regular data on the number of people on the waiting list until last November. Now these figures are available, however, we think they should be used correctly.

The number of people and cases on the waiting list are both extremely high in the latest data, having fallen below the record levels reached in late 2023.