Audience member says mother has waited 60 weeks for operation

An audience member on a televised NHS panel said his mother had waited 60 weeks for an operation and was still being told she faced another 60 weeks. Daniel said the figure on the NHS app did not change from week to week and described it as a never-ending cycle. He asked how, in a country like Britain, his mother could have paid taxes all her life and still wait so long for treatment.

The question put the panel on the spot over whether corridor care and 60-week waits could be described as a world-class NHS service. Wes Streeting said the NHS was in a better place than it was two years ago, but he accepted it was far from where it needed to be. He said it had taken more than a decade to run down the service and that COVID had a big impact. He said the waiting list was beginning to come down, ambulances were arriving faster, and four-hour A&E waits had improved, while acknowledging that the number of people waiting more than 12 hours had gone up.

He also said one summer month had seen the largest demand for urgent services in the history of the NHS, and that there were thousands more GPs than when the government came in. He pointed to his local A&E in Romford, where corridor care had been reduced to zero on some days but trolleys remained on others. He told the audience it would take time and asked them to bear with the government.

Another panel member, Tom, said Daniel's experience was seen across the country. He argued that management and leadership mattered as much as money, pointing to seven GP practices in his constituency. Five were well run and offered same-day appointments, one was about OK, and one constantly had trouble. Asked whether he had got that right in government, he said some things had been done right, including pharmacy care and GP practices, but COVID was a blow to the system.

The debate also turned to local services. A panel member said patients in the Scunthorpe area and North Lincolnshire were having to travel to Grimsby and Hull for treatment. The Northern Lincolnshire and Goole Trust was said to rank about 125th out of 134. The panel heard that a new diagnostic centre had opened, but it would not solve all the problems immediately. The exchange underlined the pressure on corridor care, waiting lists, A&E services and trust management.