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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Politics
Denis Campbell Health policy editor

Decade of neglect means NHS unable to tackle care backlog, report says

Hospital ward
The waiting list in England for non-urgent care in hospital has reached a new record high of 7.2 million people. Photograph: Peter Byrne/PA

A “decade of neglect” by successive Conservative administrations has weakened the NHS to the point that it will not be able to tackle the 7 million-strong backlog of care, a government-commissioned report has concluded.

The paper by the King’s Fund health thinktank says years of denying funding to the health service and failing to address its growing workforce crisis have left it with too few staff, too little equipment and too many outdated buildings to perform the amount of surgery needed.

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