Labour’s NHS Appointment Claims Challenged by New Data and Public Sentiment

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Labour’s NHS Appointment Claims Challenged by New Data and Public Sentiment

 

Keir Starmer’s Labour government has hailed its early efforts to reduce NHS waiting times as a significant success, highlighting what it describes as a “massive increase” in appointments. However, newly obtained data suggests the reality may not be as impressive as ministers claim, and public opinion seems to echo that skepticism.

 

 

Health Secretary Wes Streeting has repeatedly pointed to an increase of 3.6 million additional NHS appointments during Labour’s first eight months in power, exceeding the party’s original target of two million extra appointments within their first year. Yet the independent fact-checking charity Full Fact, in data shared exclusively with Sky News, found this increase actually marked a slowdown in NHS activity. During the same eight-month period under the previous Conservative government, the NHS recorded a larger increase of 4.2 million appointments.

 

 

According to the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS), Labour's target itself was never particularly ambitious. The IFS noted the additional two million appointments represent less than a 3% increase compared to the 70 million carried out in the year to June 2024. In contrast, the final year of Rishi Sunak’s government saw a 10% rise, with the year before that seeing an 8% increase. Sarah Scobie, deputy director of the Nuffield Trust, called the two million target “very modest,” warning it “won’t come close to bringing the treatment waiting list back to pre-pandemic levels, or to meeting longer-term NHS targets.”

 

 

Labour's manifesto pledge stated it would deliver “an extra two million NHS operations, scans, and appointments every year.” However, the government repeatedly failed to define how this would be measured. “We didn’t know how they were defining these appointments,” said Leo Benedictus of Full Fact. “When they said that there would be more of them, we didn’t know what there would be more of.”

 

When Labour finally claimed the target had been met in February, they released a definition that excluded maternity and mental health services but included elective operations, outpatient appointments, and diagnostic tests. Even then, the increase was measured only by comparing a five-month snapshot from July to November 2024 with the same period in 2023, adjusted for working days. This left experts uncertain whether Labour’s claim represented new progress or simply a continuation—or even deceleration—of existing trends.

 

To obtain the full context, Full Fact had to submit a Freedom of Information request. “We asked them for that information. They didn’t publish it. We didn’t have it,” Benedictus explained. “And when that came back about a month later, it was fascinating.”

 

In response to the criticism, a spokesperson for the Department of Health and Social Care said: “On entering office last July, the secretary of state was advised that the fiscal black hole meant elective appointments would have to be cut by 20,000 every week. Instead, this government provided the extra investment and has already delivered 3.6 million additional appointments.”

 

They also noted that more patients are now being seen within 18 weeks and that the waiting list has dropped by over 200,000 in nine months—over five times the reduction achieved during the same period the previous year.

 

Former health secretary Jeremy Hunt expressed disappointment: “What these numbers seem to show is that the rate of appointments was going up by more in the last government than it is by this government. That’s really disappointing when you look at the crisis in the NHS.”

 

Public sentiment reflects this disappointment. A YouGov poll for Sky News found that 39% of people think the NHS has worsened over the past year, with only 12% saying it has improved. Only 30% of respondents said they trust Keir Starmer on NHS issues, though this still compares favorably to Nigel Farage (21%) and Kemi Badenoch (16%). Edward Argar, the Conservative shadow health secretary, dismissed Labour’s claims as a “weak attempt […] to claim credit for something that was already happening.”

 

Despite some signs of progress, such as a decline in those waiting over a year for treatment—from nearly 400,000 in August 2023 to 180,242 in the latest figures—the backlog remains historically high. More than 6.25 million people are currently waiting for a total of 7.42 million treatments, meaning over one in ten people in England are on the NHS waiting list.

 

The government has committed to ensuring that no more than 8% of patients wait longer than 18 weeks by the next election. Currently, more than 40% are still waiting beyond that threshold. While the Labour government may have technically met its stated target, the broader context and pace of NHS recovery suggest much more needs to be done.

 

  Adapted by ASEAN Now from Sky News  2025-05-26