Prime Minister sets out cutting NHS waiting lists as key priority for 2023

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has said cutting NHS waiting lists will be one of his five key priorities for 2023.

However Mr Sunak’s speech did not go into detail on how he would achieve the target.

He also did not mention how he would tackle crippling winter demand on NHS services in the short term, nor mention general practice.

In a speech to the nation, Mr Sunak said he knows ‘there are challenges in A&E’, with people ‘understandably anxious when they see ambulances queuing outside hospitals’. 

He added: ‘You should know we’re taking urgent action: Increasing bed capacity by 7,000 more hospital beds and more people cared for at home. Providing new funding to discharge people into social care and the community, freeing up beds. And the NHS are working urgently on further plans for A&E and ambulances.’

And as Mr Sunak acknowledged that some people may be going into the new year with apprehension, He added that he has ‘made five promises today to deliver peace of mind’.

He said this would include halving inflation, growing the economy, reducing debt, cutting NHS waiting times and ‘stopping the boats’ [carrying illegal migrants].

Doctors today urged MPs to return to Parliament for an emergency meeting on the state of the NHS, amid warnings of crumbling services.

However, despite the grave warnings Mr Sunak concluded his speech by saying that he wants ‘people to feel something that they do not always feel today’ – ‘a belief that public services work for them’.

Asked by journalists how he intends to resolve the current crisis of demand in the NHS, Mr Sunak pointed to the Covid pandemic for holding up elective services; and said delayed discharge from hospital was to blame for ambulance hold-ups.