Wes Streeting repeats claim there are 7.5 million people on the NHS waiting list

This morning, Labour’s shadow health secretary Wes Streeting twice quoted figures for the number of people on the NHS waiting list in England. 

On the Today programme [2:13:55], Mr Streeting said “there are 7.5 million people on an NHS waiting list”, and on BBC Breakfast [1:40:16] he referred to “8 million people who are stuck” on these lists. 

But that’s not what the latest NHS England data shows. As of the end of March 2024, there are 7.5 million cases on the waiting list, involving about 6.3 million individual patients. There are always more cases than individuals on the list because some people are awaiting treatment for more than one condition.

We’ve seen other politicians and parties get this wrong too. Last week a campaign video from the Labour Party, shared by Mr Streeting and deputy leader Angela Rayner, also made the claim that “seven and a half million people are on waiting lists”.

This morning Mr Streeting also said Labour had seen the shortest waiting times and highest patient satisfaction ever.

We’ve written about these claims before—waiting lists have been measured in different ways since the NHS was founded in 1948 and we couldn’t find a consistent measure of patient satisfaction over this period, so we can’t say for sure if either claim is true.