Cornwall NHS waiting lists and A&E times in 'broken' health service REVEALED

-Credit: (Image: Faye Shepherd / Twitter)
-Credit: (Image: Faye Shepherd / Twitter)


As Keir Starmer describes the NHS as “broken but not beaten” new data reveals the scale of the task ahead of the new government - including fixing the health service in Cornwall.
The Prime Minister blames the previous Conservative government for "breaking" the healthcare system, and says: "People have the right to be angry".
A total of 7.62 were on the NHS waiting list in July this year, according to the latest data just released. That’s up from 2.68 million in July 2010, shortly after the Conservative-led coalition came to power.
In February 2020, just before the Covid-19 pandemic, 4.54 million on the waiting list. That means the size of the list increased by 67 per cent between the Tories coming to power and the start of the pandemic, and by 70 per cent between the start of the pandemic and now.
The waiting list within the Royal Cornwall Hospitals Trust (RCHT) - which runs Royal Cornwall Hospital at Treliske, Truro, West Cornwall Hospital at Penzance and St Michael's Hospital at Hayle - was up to 42,688 in July. That’s down from 43,085 in June and 48,096 in July last year. There were just 26,762 on the trust’s waiting list in February 2020, just before the pandemic though, and 21,713 in April 2011, the earliest for which figures are available.


Mr Starmer has also highlighted the long waiting times in A&E. More than a third (37.5 per cent) of attendances at major “type 1” A&Es in August took more than four hours from arrival to admission, transfer or discharge. That’s down marginally from 38.6 per cent in July, and is better than the 40.9 per cent and 42.0 per cent at the same time in each of the last two years respectively.

The number of patients waiting in A&E for over 12 hours fell to 28,494 people in August. It's down from 54,308 in January and is marginally better than 28,863 in August last year. However, before the Covid pandemic, in August 2019, just 371 people had to wait over 12 hours in A&E.
Well over half (58.8 per cent) of attendances at Cornwall's only A&E, at Treliske, in August took more than four hours from arrival to admission, transfer or discharge. That’s up from 52.70 per cent in August last year and 22.70 in August 2019, the last August before the pandemic.

In June 2015, the earliest year for which we have figures, just 18.8 per cent of attendances at RCH took over four hours. A total of 375 attendances had to wait over 12 hours in A&E in August at our local trust. That’s down slight from 396 at the same time last year, but up from none at all before the pandemic.

The NHS continues to miss its key cancer waiting time targets. Just 91.9 per cent of patients had to wait less than a month from a decision to treat to the start of treatment. That’s short of the target of 96.0 per cent.

Just over a third (67.7 per cent) of urgent cancer referrals waited less than 62 days from screening referral to treatment starting. That’s compared to a target of 85.0 per cent.

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