MP Alan Campbell column: Children are waiting too long for NHS treatment

Record waiting lists may reflect the problems of emerging from the Covid pandemic, but also more than a decade of under investment.

Last week a report showed more than 44 thousand children are waiting for elective care – the highest number on record, and a 40% increase over the two years since records began.

NHS England reports that almost 18,000 children have been waiting more than 52 weeks to see a consultant, with pain and upset for patients and parents.

The government has occasionally come up with sticking plaster solutions, sometimes short-term funding to bring the adult lists down, but there is no ringfenced money for children’s services.

Of course in an ideal world no one would be waiting for treatment.

But for children, a medical intervention may be critical at a particular age or stage of development.

Delays in accessing treatment can also have an effect on a child’s mental health and on their education.

Last week’s report highlighted the need for a plan and one in which children’s health is given the priority it deserves. But delivering that plan requires a workforce plan which, even if the government produces one soon, is 13 years overdue.

A cynic might argue that reducing adult waiting lists avoids alienating adults who vote.

But parents vote too, and so will children when they are old enough. But for now this current generation of children risks being the first which will be worse off than the previous generation, which cannot be right.