By Professor John Robertson

As the Guardian reports today a surge in waiting times in England, after a year of strikes, I thought I’d have a look at NHS Wales, led by the Labour Party, to see if that might offer us hope for better performance as the they take over in England next year.

England has 18 times the population of Wales. Scotland has 1.7 times the population of Wales.

According to the BMJ in March 2023, there were 734 000 on the NHS Wales waiting lists (presumably more now).

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All things being equal, you’d then expect England to have 18 times as many or 13.2 million waiting but it had only 9.7 million. NHS Wales has a 36% longer waiting list!

All things being equal, you’d then expect Scotland to have 1.7 times as many or 1.25 million but it had only 0.5 million. NHS Wales has a 150% longer waiting list!