The government says it has been able to deliver the extra two million appointments due to extra evening and weekend working.
The Labour Party is and always has been the party of the NHS, announcing it has delivered an extra two million appointments during its first five months in office.
After the Tories decimated our public health service following more than a decade of austerity, Prime Minister Keir Starmer made fixing the NHS a top priority for his government.
New figures published by NHS England show that between July and November 2024, the health service delivered almost 2.2 million more elective care appointments compared with the same period the previous year.
This includes for chemotherapy, radiotherapy, endoscopy, and diagnostic tests, which were possible in part because of staff working extra weekend and evening shifts, the government said.
The new data from NHS England means that the government reached its target seven months earlier than promised.
It comes as figures last week also show total NHS waiting lists fell in December for the fourth month in a row.
The government says it has been able to deliver the extra two million appointments due to extra evening and weekend working.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer said: “Two million extra NHS appointments and a waiting list on its way down – we’re delivering on our promise to fix the NHS and make sure people get the care they need, when they need it.
“This isn’t just about numbers. It’s about the cancer patients who for too long were left wondering when they’ll finally start getting their life-saving treatment. It’s about the millions of people who’ve put their lives and livelihoods on hold – waiting in pain and uncertainty as they wait for a diagnosis.
“We said we’d turn this around and that’s exactly what we’re doing – this milestone is a shot in the arm for our plan to get the NHS back on its feet and cut waiting times.”
The government also says it has set about fixing the NHS through ending NHS strikes and ‘putting immediate investment into our health system through £1.8 billion to fund extra elective care appointments as part of record £26 billion extra NHS funding secured at the October Budget’.
Health and Social Care Secretary Wes Streeting said: “We have wasted no time in getting to work to cut NHS waiting times and end the agony of millions of patients suffering uncertainty and pain.
“Because we ended the strikes, invested in the NHS, and rolled out reformed ways of working, we are finally putting the NHS on the road to recovery.
“We promised change, and we’ve delivered, providing the two million extra appointments we pledged in just our first five months – a promise made, and a promise kept. The result is around 160,000 fewer patients on waiting lists today than in July.”
Basit Mahmood is editor of Left Foot Forward
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