A black woman waits for a medical procedure or test.
People from certain ethnic groups and those living in deprived areas wait longer for public healthcare in England, an analysis has shown.
Researchers found that black children and young people wait longer in emergency departments than other ethnicities, while people from poorer areas appear to wait longer for scheduled care.
Waiting lists have skyrocketed since the pandemic, when many procedures were canceled. Factors such as underfunding and staff shortages have made it difficult for the country to recover from COVID-19.
According to the hospital, about 6.33 million people were waiting for elective procedures in August — a figure that remains stubbornly high as demand continues. performance data was released Thursday.
Emergency services have been under extreme pressure for years, with high demand and poor flow of patients through hospitals causing delays.
In September 2024, almost 40,000 patients waited more than 12 hours for emergency room trolleys. That is 18% more than last year and 36% more than in August.
Think tanks the Health Foundation and the Nuffield Trust reviewed official waiting data for emergency and planned care, as well as a government survey on hospital waiting times, to find out who was worst hit by delays.
More than 20% of people in England are likely to be waiting for some sort of public health appointment, test or treatment, the researchers found.
Black patients under the age of 40 ‘consistently’ wait longer in emergency departments than people of other ethnicities, the analysis shows. Those aged 19 or younger wait an average of 21 minutes longer than white patients of the same age.
Women have also been hit hard: the number of people waiting for gynecological care has more than tripled in the past ten years.
In May 2014, just under 185,000 people were waiting for a gynecological appointment. By May 2024, that number had grown to 597,000.
People who go to the emergency room due to psychological problems wait an average of three hours longer than people who go to the emergency room for physical reasons.
Some mental health patients spend days and even weeks in emergency rooms waiting for appropriate care, as I revealed a recent study into The leadership.
And a much larger share of people living in the poorest parts of the country (21%) wait more than a year for scheduled public health care than those living in the richest areas (12%).
“When we dig deeper into the data on waiting times, we see big worrying differences,” said Liz Fisher, senior fellow at Nuffield Trust. in a statement.
“Inequitable access to healthcare is still very real, and how long patients wait for NHS care – urgent or planned – varies enormously depending on the help they are waiting for, their age, gender, ethnicity and how deprived their local area is. is.”
She said understanding these differences was the first step in addressing them.
“Behind the figures of near-record waiting lists and many thousands of unsafe emergency room waits are patients suffering pain and, in some cases, lives tragically lost,” said Tim Gardner, assistant director of policy at the Health Foundation.
“As the Government and the NHS develop plans to tackle waiting times, support and resources to improve services must be focused on places with the greatest needs, where people often have to wait the longest.”