Despite Rishi Sunak’s commitment to reduce them, NHS waiting lists have reached a new level.
Cutting them was one of the prime minister’s five pledges to voters at the start of the year.
However, according to fresh NHS England data released this morning, an estimated 7.6 million individuals were waiting to begin treatment at the end of June, up from 7.5 million in May.
It’s the most since records began in August 2007.
Sunak stated in January that “NHS waiting lists will fall, and people will get the care they need more quickly.”
He said his pledges – which also included halving inflation, growing the economy, cutting national debt and stopping small boats crossing the Channel – were “the people’s priorities, they are your government’s priorities and we will either have achieved them or not”.
He added: “No tricks, no ambiguity – we’re either delivering for you or we’re not.
“We will rebuild trust in politics through action, or not at all. So, I ask you to judge us on the effort we put in and the results we achieve.”
The NHS data also showed that the number of people waiting more than 52 weeks to start routine hospital treatment had fallen from 385,022 to 383,083 at the end of June.
Ministers have said they will eliminate all waits of more than 52 weeks by next spring.
Meanwhile, the government is also failing to hit its target of ending all waits of more than 18 months.
Sunak has said he wanted to eliminate them by April, but today’s figures show that 7,177 were waiting longer than a year and a half, although that is down from 11,446 at the end of May.