The worrying and in some cases dangerously long waits for NHS care now being faced by so many patients are a headache for the government, and a potential opportunity for the opposition.
Stories about delays in getting an operation, hospital bed, GP appointment, ambulance or entry into an A&E unit from the back of an ambulance, make headlines almost daily. Waits for non-urgent hospital treatment are not just the longest on record, they also affect unprecedented numbers of patients – 7.2 million in England alone and about another 2 million in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
