SIR – More than three million English NHS patients are awaiting treatment, figures published on Friday, August 8, show, as “cracks begin to appear” in the service after four years of crippling Con-Dem cuts.
NHS England statistics for June exposed the 3.2 million waiting list and 521 people had been waiting more than a year. By the end of June almost 94 per cent of patients were enduring waits of up to 18 weeks.
The findings confirmed waiting times were at their highest level in six years “cracks were beginning to appear” in performances as a result of growing financial pressures, the report for the think tank warned.
Shadow health secretary, Andy Burnham, accused Prime Minister David Cameron of failing in this pledge to cut waiting times. “Under his government there are more people on NHS waiting lists and those patients are waiting longer for treatment”, he said. “Under David Cameron people are seeing a return to that old Tory choice of suffering in silence or paying to go private.”
Mr Max Hey, Fairway Grove, Bradford
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