MailOnline corrects column which misrepresented waiting list figures

28 May 2024

Following an intervention by Full Fact, MailOnline has corrected an error in a Richard Littlejohn column which didn’t accurately reflect NHS waiting list data in England. 

The article originally repeated a familiar claim that there are more than seven million people awaiting some form of NHS treatment in England. But this figure refers to the number of treatments people are waiting for, not the number of individual patients. 

According to the latest referral to treatment (RTT) data, collected at the end of March 2024, about 6.3 million people were waiting to begin about 7.5 million courses of treatment.

The article has now been amended and we thank the Daily Mail for clarifying this point.

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