Rishi Sunak is in danger of missing his target to cut NHS waiting lists unless doctors drop plans to take industrial action over the coming months, the UK health secretary has warned.
Victoria Atkins on Sunday urged doctors in England to come to an agreement with the government over pay and conditions, suggesting the prime minister’s waiting list pledge would not be hit unless they do.
Atkins has taken a more emollient tone towards negotiations with doctors than her predecessor, Steve Barclay, since being appointed as health secretary last month, and struck a deal with consultants in late November. The government still needs doctors’ unions to approve that deal, and for junior doctors to strike a separate agreement if it wants to end the chaos that has blighted the health service since last year.
Atkins told the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg: “We are very much looking to meet those targets [to cut waiting lists], but I need the consultants to pass this settlement that we’ve put forward [and] I hope very much that doctors in training will be able to reach a settlement with us as well.
“Then if we have removed the threat of industrial action from the NHS, then … for example, in the October set of actions, we have 40,000 appointments being rescheduled each day – well then, that stops and we’re able to get on with it.”
Asked whether the prime minister’s promise to cut waiting lists could be achieved without such agreements, Atkins said: “We are doing everything we can. We have an enormous amount of goodwill at the moment from the BMA [British Medical Association] and from others, and I’m keen to encourage that.
“Again, I would very much ask consultants to look at the settlement because actually it’s a very modern contract which I hope they’ll find acceptable.”
Atkins’ comments highlight how difficult Rishi Sunak has found it to meet his NHS pledge, which was one of five priorities he set out at the beginning of the year. Since then, the number of people waiting for consultant-led elective care has jumped from 7.2 million to 7.8 million, with ministers blaming industrial action for much of that rise.
The waiting list is one of four pledges the prime minister has so far been unable to meet, alongside growing the economy, cutting the government’s debt and stopping small boat crossings across the Channel. He has met one of his five pledges, which was to halve inflation by the end of the year.
Falling inflation levels helped pave the way for the chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, to announce a 2p cut in national insurance rates at the Autumn statement. However, he came under fire for not committing any extra spending to the health service, something critics say will make a winter crisis more likely this year.
Sarah Olney, the Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesperson, said: “This Conservative government has already broken its promise on recruiting new GPs, now it looks likely that the promise to cut waiting lists will also be broken.
She added: “With no extra money for the NHS during the autumn statement, we’re flying blind into another winter crisis and Atkins wouldn’t even deny it.”
Atkins said on Sunday. “We are going to do everything we can to do this, it’s my number one priority for the winter. Because I know the worry that people have particularly when an accident or something like that happens.”
• This article was amended on 4 December 2023 to clarify that the piece relates to the NHS in England, not to all of the UK as an earlier version could have suggested.
