a very long waiting list there are over 5.6 million people queuing for treatment in england right now. that s 1.3 million more than at the start of the pandemic. this month the government announced they ll be investing £36 billion on nhs and social care for all four home nations up to 2025. analysis of their plans shows that 10 billion of that has been committed to address the backlog in england. we need to pay for those missed operations and treatments. and we need to go beyond the record funding we already provided for the nhs. i have to level with people. waiting lists will get worse before they get better. what does that mean? i think it means two things. number one, we can expect the waiting list to continue to grow as more people come forward to gp services requesting treatment. and the second thing is, once you re on the waiting list,