NHS: Health Secretary Wes Streeting ‘stunned’ by NHS neglect

This is the second month in a row that the waiting list has risen, but it is still lower than the peak in September, when the number was 7.77 million, reaching 1,000.

The inquiry – led by NHS surgeon and independent peer Lord Ara Darzi – will help inform Mr Streeting’s 10-year plan for the NHS.

He told the BBC that one of the things that struck him in his first week as health and social care secretary was that “worse is coming”.

There were many things that are known about the health service and how patient safety is handled and how people are held accountable for outcomes that are not yet in the public domain, he added, adding that “there will be more.”

He added that he would present the case in the coming weeks and that an independent investigation would have his support.

He said it was intended to “make a really clear and transparent case for the scale of neglect in the NHS”.

Mr Streeting also said they would take steps to ensure senior management were regulated so that whistleblowers who were silenced by managers no longer worked in the NHS.

“I take this issue so seriously,” he said.

Mr Streeting told The Sun the situation in the NHS could be improved but the problem needed to be diagnosed first.

“It is clear to anyone who works in the NHS or uses NHS services that it is broken.”

He said that during the election campaign he had been contacted by people from across the country who had felt let down, including an 88-year-old woman who had fallen out of bed and waited three hours for an ambulance, and an RAF veteran who had waited 15 months for surgery.

It is more than eight years since England failed to meet any of the key targets for emergency department waiting times, hospital waiting times or waiting times for cancer treatment.

In addition to the backlog, waiting times in emergency departments and oncology facilities are much shorter than expected.

One in four patients waited more than four hours in emergency departments in June, while a third of cancer patients did not start treatment within 62 days of referral.

The release of the data comes as the Nuffield Trust warned that progress in reducing waiting times in the NHS had “stagnated” and long waits remained “endemic” across the health service.

Lord Darzi, who served as an adviser and minister in the Labour governments of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, has been asked to report back by September.

Amanda Pritchard, chief executive of NHS England, welcomed the investigation.

“Frontline NHS staff are doing an incredible job under enormous pressure, but we know they face huge challenges and patients do not always receive the timely and high-quality care they need.

“We will work closely with the government, independent experts and NHS staff to look in detail at the scale of the challenges and set out plans to address them – this comprehensive review will be an important step in helping us build an NHS fit for the future.”