NHS England Announces Plan to Fight Long Waiting Lists with Travel Plan

July 5, 2022

At the beginning of the year, around 22,500 people in England had a wait time of 2 years or longer for an elective operation. Although this number has fallen to ~6,700, many more patients have shorter, but still considerable, waits for standard care. NHS England plans to address this growing concern by scheduling surgeries for patients at further distances from their place of residence than previously done.

According to Phil Taylor, “The government has also set an objective of eliminating any delays to procedures of 18 months or more by April next year, and over 65 weeks by March 2024, and reducing all waits to less than a year by 2025. Last September, it promised £5.4 billion ($7.5 billion) to ease the backlog in NHS care, including £1 billion to get routine surgeries back on track.”

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