Can Labour clear the NHS backlog?

Labour has laid out its vision today to succeed in a vital policy area where the Tories have all but failed: clearing the NHS backlog.

Labour leader, Sir Keir Starmer, and shadow health secretary, Wes Streeting, have given themselves five years – until the end of next parliament – to meet the NHS target that calls for at least 92 per cent of patients to begin their treatment within 18 weeks of referral. 

This is ambitious of Starmer and Streeting. The NHS target has not been hit since February 2016. And the waiting list currently stands at 7.5 million –  of which 3.2 million have been waiting over 18 weeks for treatment. 

The overall backlog is slightly down from the record 7.8 million who were waiting for treatment back in September, but it’s still 3 million above its level prior to the pandemic.

That’s despite Rishi Sunak making tackling the NHS backlog one of his own key priorities back in January 2023. 

How does a Labour government intend to see its pledge through? 

Starmer has promised to create 40,000 extra appointments, scans and operations a week during Labour’s first year, if he gains power. To meet this pledge, he will double the number of scanners in hospitals to diagnose patients earlier and tackle the bottleneck caused by long waits for test results. 

He has also promised to offer more Brits weekend and evening appointments. Which may seem like a sensible, indeed obvious, solution though it will depend on having enough staff to take on these extra shifts. 

In an additional effort to free up capacity, Streeting has dared to broach the politically loaded topic of NHS reform. Writing in The Telegraph, he has insisted that a Labour government will be even more radical than Tony Blair when it comes to making use of the private sector to take pressure off the national health service. 

All in all, Labour estimates that this push to clear the backlog will cost the party £1.3 billion in the first year, and it insists this can be paid for by clamping down on tax dodgers, and closing non-dom tax loopholes.

One elephant in the room that Streeting is yet to address is how a Labour government would put at end to the seemingly never-ending industrial dispute with junior doctors. 

Today, the BMA union announced that junior doctors are set to stage yet another set of strikes – the eleventh walkout since March last year – in the week leading up to the general election. 

This fresh major disruption to the health service is timed for maximum impact, to ensure the government’s failure to resolve the dispute will be fresh in the minds of every voter heading to the ballot box. 

The union said it was taking further action after the most recent set of talks with ministers, which began in mid-May, resulted in no credible pay offer. The BMA has not budged from its original demand of a 35 per cent pay rise, to make up for 15 years of “pay erosion”.

Sunak’s inability to resolve this dispute has compounded his failure to make proper inroads into the NHS backlog. NHS England research published in March suggested around 430,000 more patients could have been treated had there been no strikes.

Yet it may well prove equally tough for Streeting to put an end to the industrial action. He has already levelled with doctors, describing their 35 per cent pay rise as “unaffordable”. And his tough talk that the NHS won’t get any more money until it improves productivity has not gone down well with the uncompromising BMA union. 

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