Tory plans to start reducing long NHS waits by 2025 are at serious risk, a watchdog has warned.
The plan’s stated aim is for elective activity to increase sharply, up 29 per cent from the 2019-20 level in 2024/25.
But the National Audit Office said such an increase would be unprecedented without substantial additional NHS funding and staff.
Its report says: “For comparison, before the pandemic it took the NHS five years (2013-14 to 2018-19) to increase completed elective pathways by 18 per cent.
“Ordinarily, such a large jump would require not just better use of existing assets but also sustained increases in NHS workforce and infrastructure, which tend to take years.”
NHS England also intends to eliminate waits of more than a year and return to pre-pandemic levels of patients who have to wait more than 62 days for an urgent cancer referral.
NAO chief Gareth Davies said: “There are significant risks to the delivery of the plan. The NHS faces workforce shortages and inflationary pressures.”
It comes as Health Secretary Steve Barclay had to deny telling Treasury officials the NHS “could cope” without extra cash to cover inflation.
At the NHS Providers conference in Liverpool yesterday, he said: “That is completely incorrect. I can absolutely confirm that we do need support to meet those inflationary pressures.”
