NHS England reports the number of patients waiting for care has reduced for a second month in a row as NHS staff treat more patients than ever before in one month. (January 2024)
The overall waiting list fell by more than 95,000 in November 2023- from 7.7million in October the wait list reduced to 7.6million in November, according to monthly performance data.
The progress is reported to be due to NHS staff delivering more than 1.63 million treatments in November, which marks the highest monthly activity on record and around 150,000 more than the same month pre-pandemic, 1.48million in November 2019.
November 2023 also marked record number of diagnostics with more than 2.3 million patients receiving vital tests or checks- 15% more than same month pre-pandemic.
The report suggests the urgent and emergency care recovery plan is working, highlighting measures such as 'traffic control centres', more ambulance hours, extra beds and "innovative use of the NHS' world-leading virtual ward programme" that have been rolled out previously.
“We have experienced the toughest possible start to 2024 with the longest set of strikes in our 75-year history, but we remain focused on doing all we can to make progress on the covid backlog that has inevitably built up over the pandemic. While we know we have a long way to go, caring for over 1.6 million people in a single month is such important progress and makes such a huge difference for those patients who have been waiting for an appointment or operation."
Read the full news article published by NHS England on the 11th January 2024 here.
Network with colleagues who are working to tackle the NHS waiting time crisis and learn from case studies demonstrating the practical application of capacity planning strategies and clinical redesign tools at our virtual one-day conference Transforming NHS Waiting Times: A Path to Timely and Quality Healthcare taking place on 30th April 2024.
Read more details about the conference here. 
