Revealed: City MP slams government as nearly 46,000 now waiting for NHS care in Portsmouth

Stephen Morgan MP has slammed the government for the ‘healthcare hell’ Portsmouth has become, after latest figures from the NHS show that 45,993 people are waiting for NHS treatment at Portsmouth Hospitals University NHS Trust.

901 people locally have been waiting for more than a year, under the watch of three separate Conservative Health Secretaries.

At the outbreak of the Covid pandemic, following a decade of Tory mismanagement there were 4.4 million people on the NHS waiting list in England, then a record high.

Nationally, the standard of 92% of people seen within 18 weeks of a referral has not been met since 2016. Now, 1 in every 9 people in England are on the NHS waiting list.

The NHS went into the latest wave of Covid infections with the longest waiting list ever, understaffed and overstretched.

The Conservative Government published its elective care recovery plan for the NHS this week but failed to set out how it would address the workforce shortages the NHS is facing. The plan set the Government’s ambition as beginning to reduce waiting lists in 2024.

Commenting, the Member of Parliament for Portsmouth South, Stephen Morgan, said:

“Record numbers of people in Portsmouth are waiting for care and they are waiting longer than ever before, often in pain and distress.

“Our local NHS staff worked heroically throughout the pandemic, but they have been stretched like never before.

“As the Culture Secretary admits, a decade of Conservative mismanagement left the NHS “wanting and inadequate” when Covid struck, and patients are now left to wait too long as a result.

“Our NHS is crying out for a change in government to give us the fresh start we need”.

Wes Streeting MP, Shadow Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, said:

“One in every nine people is now waiting for NHS care, and they are waiting longer than ever before. 

“Hundreds of thousands of patients have now been waiting for care through three Conservative Health Secretaries. The only discussion of the NHS in the Conservative leadership election seems to be about how much they plan to cut it by. We may have a new Prime Minister in two months’ time, but only a Labour government will give Britain the fresh start it needs.

“Labour will rebuild our NHS with the staff, equipment and modern technology needed to treat patients on time again.”