Waiting list for diagnostic tests reaches 1.6 million - up 50% since 2019

EMBARGO: Immediate Release

• The waiting list for diagnostic tests has risen by 525,000 since June 2019 to 1.6 million

• NHS target: less than 1% of people should be waiting more than 6 weeks for these tests - currently 1 in 4 wait 6 weeks or longer

• Lib Dem Leader Ed Davey calls for an expansion of community diagnostic centres and the legal right to see your GP in seven days as his party makes fixing the NHS a pillar of their conference

NHS waiting lists for basic diagnostic tests have grown by 50% since June 2019, up to 1.6 million. The research from the House of Commons Library, commissioned by the Liberal Democrats, also shows that over 25% of people are waiting more than 6 weeks for one of these tests, the NHS target is less than 1%. 

The 15 types of tests that make up the list provided by the Commons Library include MRIs, CT scans, Echocardiography, and DEXA scans. For MRIs the waiting list has spiked by a third up to 280,000 thousand. For CT scans, it has shot up by 40,000 to 180,000.

A separate FOI from the Liberal Democrats to NHS Trusts has revealed the longest wait time for certain standard diagnostic scans.

In Sandwell and West Birmingham NHS Trusts response, they said that the longest wait for an MRI which took place in the past 12 months was 914 days. At the same Trust, someone waited 367 days for a CT scan, 665 days for a non-urgent x-ray, and 693 days for an Ultrasound. 

For an Echocardiogram, someone at Wye Valley Trust waited 49 weeks. For an Angiography, at Milton Keynes Trust the longest wait was 475 days.

The proportion of people waiting over six weeks for a diagnostic test is well above the NHS target of less than 1%. Currently it sits at 25.5%, over 25-times higher than the target. The percentage of people waiting more than six weeks has also spiked since 2019, from 3.8% in June 2019, to 25.5% currently, a near seven-fold increase. 

For audiology assessments, currently over 35.5% of people are waiting more than 6 weeks for a test, up from 1.4% in June 2019. Electrophysiology exams now have 35.9% waiting more than 6 weeks, much higher than the 1.6% in June 2019. 

The region with the highest waiting list is currently the Midlands with over 330,000 hundred thousand people on a waiting list for a diagnostic test. This is followed by the South East and the North East and Yorkshire  with more than 250,000 and 230,000 waiting respectively. The Midlands also had the highest proportion of people waiting more than 6 weeks for a test with 31.5%.

The Liberal Democrats are calling for an expansion of community diagnostic centres to bring services closer to where people live and ensure they can be seen far quicker.

The party is also calling for the right for everyone to see their GP in seven days by increasing the number of appointments and the number of GPs by 8,000. The LibDems have also called for investment in new hospital equipment to ensure that patients get the first-class treatment that they deserve.

Liberal Democrat Leader Ed Davey said:

“What this Conservative government has done to the NHS is nothing short of a national scandal. Millions are forced to wait in pain and discomfort, anxiously wondering when they will get a diagnosis, let alone treatment.

“We cannot fix our economy without fixing our NHS. People can’t get back to work when they’re stuck waiting to see a GP, get a diagnosis or start treatment. The longer they wait, the worse their health gets and the greater the stress for themselves and their loved ones.

“Ministers are missing in action in this NHS crisis, and it’s patients who are suffering. We need urgent action to get on top of this mess and end these appalling delays.”

ENDS

Notes to Editor:

The House of Commons Library data can be found here. 

Notes from the House of Commons Library 

This data is published monthly as part of NHS England’s Diagnostic Waiting Times and Activity dataset.

The waiting time target for diagnostic tests is that, of those waiting for a test, under 1% should have been waiting for more than 6 weeks. Performance has been a long way from this standard since the pandemic. NHS England currently has a recovery target to reach performance of 5% by March 2025.

The attached spreadsheet contains a range of data:

The first tab shows national data since June 2019 on the waiting list for diagnostic tests. The second tab shows the national data on the percentage of patients waiting over 6 weeks for a diagnostic test. 

The third and fourth tabs show data for individual NHS trusts on the waiting list for individual tests and the percentage of patients waiting over 6 weeks. 

The fifth and sixth tabs show data for individual NHS geographical areas (“commissioners”).

The seventh and eighth tabs show data for NHS regions.

On tabs 3 to 8, data is shown at six-monthly intervals (in rows) and for individual tests (in columns). The Library has added coloured lines here to help explain the structure, but these aren’t included in the spreadsheet.

If you want to read trends for an individual NHS trust then you read downwards on the date columns. The red line indicates the lines for one trust and the blue trust indicates rows for another. Then if you want to read data for individual tests, you read across in the columns (purple lines). If you want to interrogate data for a particular trust or a particular date then you may need to use the filter/sort arrow buttons (highlighted orange below). These will allow you to filter the view.

When looking at trust-level data you need to be aware that some trusts have merged during this time period. This means that sometimes there is a change in a trust’s name, or a large change in their waiting list, as a result of organisational change. The relevant mergers during this time period are as follows:

• South Tyneside and Sunderland - merger of City Hospitals Sunderland and South Tyneside

• University Hospitals Bristol and Weston - merger of Weston and University Hospitals Bristol

• Mid and South Essex (merger of 3 trusts - southend, mid essex, basildon)

• Bedfordshire Hospitals - merger of Luton/Dunstable and Bedford

• East Suffolk and North Essex - merger of Ipswich and Colchester

• Liverpool University Hospitals - merger of Aintree and Royal Liverpool

• Somerset NHS Foundation Trust - merged with Yeovil in April 2023 (too recently for your data)

• Royal Devon University - merger of Royal Devon and North Devon

• Northern Care Alliance - merger of Salford Royal and Pennine Acute

• North Cumbria Integrated Care - merger of Cumbria Partnership and North Cumbria

• University Hospitals Derby and Burton - merger of Derby and Burton

When looking at commissioner-level data you need to be aware that the structure of many NHS areas changed in 2019 and 2020. This means that some areas may only have data available for part of the time period shown. For instance, Barking and Dagenham only shows data until December 2020; after this it was part of a larger North East London area. But some areas, like Oxfordshire, have consistent data available for the whole period between 2019 and 2023.

FOI questions 

Your Trusts longest wait time for a non-urgent X-ray in the past 12 months

Your Trusts longest wait time for a CT scan in the past 12 months

Your Trusts longest wait time for an MRI in the past 12 months

Your Trusts longest wait time for a PET scan in the past 12 months

Your Trusts longest wait time for an Ultrasound in the past 12 months

Your Trusts longest wait time for an Angiography in the past 12 months

Your Trusts longest wait time for an Electrocardiogram scan in the past 12 months

Your Trusts longest wait time for an Echocardiogram in the past 12 months

Sandwell and West Birmingham NHS Trust FOI response 

Wye Valley NHS Trust FOI response

I have considered your request and have set out the Trust’s response below: 

1. 14 weeks 

2. 10 weeks 

3. 26 weeks 

4. N/A, do not perform at the WVT 

5. 21 weeks 

6. 1 weeks 

7. 0 weeks 

8. 49 weeks 

Please note, the figures above relate to outlier cases, which is not the case for the majority of waits at the WVT.  

96% of MRIs, 97.5% of CT’s and 96% of NonOBsUSS cases are seen within 6 weeks. The national planning expectation  is 85% by March 2024 and 95% by March 2025.  

Over the past 12 months, the WVT have been operating well above the national planning expectations. 

Milton Keynes NHS Trust FOI response

Your Trusts longest wait time for a non-urgent X-ray in the past 12 months. 

208 days

Your Trusts longest wait time for a CT scan in the past 12 months. 

146 days

Your Trusts longest wait time for an MRI in the past 12 months. 

162 days

Your Trusts longest wait time for a PET scan in the past 12 months. 

Not performed at Trust

Your Trusts longest wait time for an Ultrasound in the past 12 months. 

384 days

Your Trusts longest wait time for an Angiography in the past 12 months. 

475 days

Your Trusts longest wait time for an Electrocardiogram scan in the past 12 months 

93% of patients seen within 6 weeks

Your Trusts longest wait time for an Echocardiogram in the past 12 months.

93% of patients are consistently seen within 6 weeks