It comes as the latest GP Patient Experience Survey, also published today, shows that patients are putting off booking appointments because they find it too difficult and satisfaction with GPs is declining. The number of people waiting more than a year to appear reached 330,000, up from the previous month, although two-year waits more than halved between December and May. The Government and NHS England have said they want to eliminate waiting lists of one year or more by March 2025 and those of more than two years – except for patient selection – by the end of this month. Graphic The health charity said “the alarm bells are ringing loudest in the emergency services”. Although A&E visits fell slightly to 2,183,670 in June, slightly down on the previous month, 41% of patients waited more than four hours in main A&Es before being seen. More than 130,000 patients who needed a bed waited more than four hours in A&E, with 22,034 people waiting more than 12 hours between the decision to admit them and a bed being made available. The average response time for the most urgent ambulance responses in England – those dealing with life-threatening illnesses or injuries – also rose to more than nine minutes last month, up from eight minutes 36 seconds in May. The average target time is seven minutes. Cancer waiting times were notably better than in January, when the NHS’s performance against seven out of nine cancer waiting time targets fell to record lows. However, most of the agency’s cancer targets were not met and some were at their worst levels. Almost 40% of patients who needed treatment within two months of an urgent referral from their GP had not started treatment and a quarter of patients who needed treatment within two months of a consultant upgrade had not received it. Dr Tim Cooksley, chairman of the Society of Acute Medicine, said the number of patients waiting long periods for emergency care remained “unacceptable and should not be seen as the new normal”. Tim Gardner, senior policy fellow at the Health Foundation, said there is a fundamental problem with the health and social care system: “Chronic workforce shortages, bed capacity shortages and patient discharge delays are causing these pressures ». But Professor Stephen Powis, national medical director for NHS England, said the service was making good progress in some areas, pointing to a record number of tests and checks in May and a fall in the number of people waiting more than two years for treatment. treatment. Subscribe to First Edition, our free daily newsletter – every morning at 7am. BST “There is no doubt that the NHS is still facing significant pressures, from rising Covid admissions, thousands of staff absent due to the virus, heatwave and record demand for ambulances and emergency care.” Separate figures show that patient satisfaction with GPs is falling, with 72% of patients in England reporting a good experience of their practice in early 2022, down from 83% the previous year and 82% in 2020. More than half of patients – 55% – who needed an appointment said they had avoided making an appointment in the past year, up from 42% in 2021 and more than a quarter (27%) had not booked an appointment because they also found it difficult, up from just 11% in 2021. Additional report from PA
