NHS Waiting Lists - A work of fiction

I've just been referred for the same,the doctor took photos and has emailed dermatology and I'll hear back with a plan within 3 days. That's what happened last time I had one and was given a treatment plan and prescribed chemo cream. Clearly not all areas do this then 😢

I've got a potentially suspicious lesion on my face, been referred to dermatology urgently, how urgent is urgent? Waiting list is 1 year! That's to even be seen in clinic!

I saw that too. My mum has been told she needs a knee replacement and the wait time is 3/4 months. She's very lucky to be in the area she is!

Defo contact your MP and explain you're costing the taxpayer so much more in benefits than if the NHS just paid for you to have it done privately now. Unlikely they can do anything but we need this highlighted!

@taxguru I wouldn't trust anything they do to be honest. I remember some years back there was a huge coverage of the A&E waiting lists in the papers. The government then decided to "fix" the issue. I later understood that fixing it simply meant redefining what "waiting" actually meant. They just made sure that in most trusts someone came out to "see" you within 15 minutes of your arrival. That meant you have been "seen" within 15 minutes. The papers reported it as a huge success but, of course, in practice nothing changed because people still had to wait at least 4 hours to to be properly seen by someone who could actually take some action that may have led to either diagnosis or just making them feel better.

Back in the noughties, my FIL waited 18 months for an "urgent" cancer operation where the waiting list target/deadline was 16/18 weeks. The NHS simply fudged it by moving him between hospitals/consultants for no obvious reason (restarting the "clock") changing his diagnosis/treatment plan (restarting the "clock"), etc. After 18 months, he finally got his operation, in the original hospital, under the original consultant, and it was under the original diagnosis/treatment plan. I wouldn't trust the NHS waiting list statistics as far as I could throw their management! It's all fudged. It's probably why the NHS doesn't try to follow the same "targets" anymore - they were a work of fiction back in the noughties and probably took a small army of administrators to assemble and process the data, all to make the bosses "Look good". Those of us who have either suffered ourselves or seen our family suffer under some of the crappest NHS in the last 20-30 years know how bad it can be if you're not one of the lucky ones to get a decent consultant in a decent hospital.

My husband has been waiting for an emergency heart operation that he was told needed to be done within 4 weeks of him being diagnosed to have the best chance of success. That was over 16 months ago. It's terrible that people are having to wait so long

There was a scam where you would be given an appointment some years away, then you were no longer on a waiting list.

I waited 18 months for an urgent op that I was told would be 6 weeks, I asked where I was on the list multiple times but they wouldn't tell me, they said the list got updated daily...ah,so there is a list then? Apparently so but they couldn't tell me where I was on it.

@ticktock19 A huge amount of the cash is taken up with wages, IT infrastructure (which is pitiful) and estates management / renovation.

I agree with that and I also think that a lot of it is mismanaged and spent irrationally, i.e. in a way that people wouldn't spend money if it was their personal budget or business. I think there are a lot of private companies involved in managing XYZ for the NHS and obviously they are all looking at how to maximise their profits rather than how to deliver the best service in the most rational way. We are often told that it's a public service but the only thing that's public about it seems to be the taxpayers' money. A lot of the NHS work is outsourced or contracted out to private companies, who seem to believe that the taxpayers' money is a bottomless pit for them to dip into. We need a fundamental reform of the NHS but because we have governments most of which don't really last, they aren't really interested in any proper transformation that would fix the issues. All they care about is electoral slogans that would get them in power and that is all.

some of the waiting lists do seem a bit fictional!

I was sent for a cardiology test, and there was an appointment given shortly after the referral - for a year from now, a placeholder appointment that said it wasn't for me to attend, and that I'd be sent a time in due course. Because I had that appointment, nothing ever showed up in the 'referrals' section of my NHS app (so I never got to consider any other locations), nor in the waiting list section - which makes me think it was done somehow to bypass the normal statistics. I wasn't 'on' a waiting list because of it. I suppose it didn't get round the statistics around the time to appointment, but it might have reduced the size of the apparent waiting list. They grade the hospitals on whether they get most of these done in 6 weeks. mine eventually appointment was about 16 weeks i think.

So in that sense, they are a bit fictional. Also the myPlannedCare figures are really general - for orthopaedics, for example, it covers every type of elective surgery, from super quick ones to hip replacements. It's so general as to be really unhelpful in actually giving you an idea about your waiting time. I would much rather know a realistic time for types of procedures - not every single one listed separately, but somewhat more categorised than it is at the moment. Even if the wait is long, it's better to know.

However I have had some good luck in getting cancellation slots, even for surgery. Not on the day, but sometimes with only a few days notice. And for other tests or appointments, sometimes phoned just the day before.

A huge amount of the cash is taken up with wages, IT infrastructure (which is pitiful) and estates management / renovation. Sadly there's not much left for helping people feel better

I am often wondering what those waiting lists are actually based on and I mean all waiting lists in general. The NHS is one of the world's largest employers. As of Feb 2024, it employed 1.34M people! Its budget is nearly 200B but none of it ever seems enough! I know it's hard to imagine what 200B is but this would equate to nearly £3,000 for every single person in the country. Now, if you imagine that the majority of people are not ill and do not constantly require operations or serious treatments, there is a question as to where all money actually goes. Every single government tells us that it is their priority to sort out the NHS, to cut down the waiting lists and to improve hospital performance but not a single government has actually managed to delivery any such thing as the NHS still seems to be falling apart.

I recently had to go to A&E and the average waiting time was over 8 hours. One lady in the waiting room actually collapsed and even that only meant that a nurse came out to take a look at her but she still had to continue waiting her turn in the waiting area because presumably the nurse decided that collapsing didn't constitute an emergency! I do appreciate that many people go to A&E for matters which are neither accident, nor emergency but surely nobody goes there for fun and if there were alternatives, then they wouldn't come to A&E!

The only service that you can get on the NHS without any waiting seems to be vaccination of every kind. That can be delivered pretty much instantly to anyone. Beyond that, there are no ambulances, no surgeries and no other serious treatments which can be delivered without waiting for at least 3 months and yet the NHS needs more and more money every single year!

I am waiting for a hernia operation, I've been told waiting lists are over a year, the Government wonder why anxiety and depression PIP applications are on the rise

It doesn't often work pragmatically. You need to be nil by mouth, you need pre-op checks, you need to wash with antibac for up to a week before the surgery...

@PrettyFedUp2025 Hopefully your operation will happen much much sooner then.

Postcode lottery is right.

I've clearly been very lucky because in the last three years I've had NHS cancer surgery - waiting time 21 days, and then chemo & radiotherapy completed in the following 12 weeks.

And then an unrelated removal of an ovary, elective day case, waited 14 weeks.

Consider yourself lucky you don’t live in NI! 1 year would be considered a miraculously short wait - it’s more like 5 years+ here. I work in a private hospital nowadays (spent 20 years in the NHS beforehand) and the amount of patients I see having to take out loans that they can’t really afford or use their life’s savings to fund a £15k hip replacement is scandalous. These people are being forced into debt as it is their only hope of getting out of pain in a timely manner.

OP phone up and tell the secretary you will take any cancellations no matter how last minute. Operations get cancelled because people are ill for example, but they might only let the hospital know the afternoon before. Everyone I know who has done this has had their operation much quicker.

If they have been waiting that long it is because the consultant did not think they needed one 11 years ago. It is common for consultants to say someone will need a knee replacement at some point. It does not mean they would get one yet, even if there was no waiting list.

We used to have the option of Choose and Book, where you could opt to go somewhere else if the wait was shorter, but that seems to have gone now.

No urgency, surgeon just had a space and wanted it filled. It is a complete lottery though.

My 1st op was the following day. It was classed as an urgent trauma case. The second one is classed as semi elective, so I think it depends on the type of surgery!

I agree though, it's a total lottery and the urgency of the treatment doesn't always tie in with the severity of the illness!

I’m against the norm, my daughter waited 5 days for her operation! Although initial appointment was an 11 week wait.