The Government “has overseen years of decline” in NHS surgery and cancer care and needs a better plan for how it's going to achieve better outcomes.
That’s according to the latest report from the Public Accounts Committee (PAC), which said that even before the pandemic, the Department for Health and Social Care (DHSC) did not increase NHS capacity sufficiently to meet growing demand.
The pandemic has seen waiting lists hit record highs, with the amount of time patients can expect to wait also rapidly increasing. As of the end of January, there were a record 6.10 million people waiting for elective treatment, such as knee and hip operations, at NHS hospitals in England.
