UK Growth in NHS appointments continues to slow under Labour

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Labour’s NHS Appointment Claims Under Scrutiny as Growth Slows

 

The Labour government’s claims of a record-breaking performance in delivering NHS appointments are being challenged, as new data suggests the rate of increase has actually slowed since Sir Keir Starmer took office. Despite headlines boasting millions of additional appointments, closer examination reveals that the pace of progress is less impressive than portrayed.

 

 

At a press conference on Thursday, the Prime Minister proudly announced that his government had surpassed its target, delivering four million extra NHS appointments within its first nine months. “At the last election a year ago, we promised two million extra appointments in the NHS in the first year of a Labour government,” Starmer said. “We have now delivered four million extra appointments and that's thanks to your hard work and that of your colleagues. Four million. That’s a record amount for a single year ever,” he told NHS staff.

 

 

But Sky News and independent fact-checkers at Full Fact have found that these figures may not be as extraordinary as they sound. In fact, the 8.0% rise in appointments since Labour came to power falls short of the 10.6% increase achieved by Rishi Sunak’s Conservative government over the same period the year before. Sunak’s government saw five million additional appointments in that timeframe.

 

The government's original pledge to deliver two million extra appointments was, according to Full Fact, modest from the outset. “If [the government] achieved a rise of two million in its first year in office, it would be by far the smallest rise since the pandemic,” the organisation noted. While Labour has doubled that figure, experts point out that the increase still represents a relatively small percentage of the total.

 

To put it into perspective, two million extra appointments make up less than 3% of the nearly 70 million conducted in the year leading up to June 2024. And while the annual total now hovers around 75 million in England, that number naturally grows with rising demand and a growing population. The real issue, critics argue, is not whether the number of appointments is increasing, but whether that increase is sufficient to reduce the NHS’s substantial backlog and meet growing demand.

 

A key point of contention has been Starmer’s claim that the four million figure represents a record. When questioned, the Department of Health and Social Care clarified that what the Prime Minister meant was that the overall number of appointments reached a record level, not that the four million additional appointments were a record by themselves—a crucial distinction.

 

Full Fact journalist Leo Benedictus commented: “While the total number of appointments may be at a record high, the actual rise in these appointments under Labour is significantly lower than it was the previous year.” He added that historical data, obtained by Full Fact through the Freedom of Information Act, indicates that appointment numbers have been steadily rising for years and that Labour’s increase is not exceptional.

 

“It still isn’t entirely clear exactly which sorts of activity the Government is claiming is at record level, because for these appointments alone that just isn’t true,” Benedictus said. “No voter thinks improving the NHS is simple or easy, but in a time of historically low trust in politics, it is even more important that the Government is transparent and honest about their data and its significance.”

 

In light of these findings, critics argue that while Labour’s achievements in boosting appointment numbers may be notable, they are far from unprecedented—and claims of record-breaking progress may ultimately do more to undermine public trust than to bolster it.

 

  Adapted by ASEAN Now from Sky News  2025-07-05