Healthwatch Chair interviewed by BBC about long waits at our local hospital Trust

South East facing some of longest NHS wait times

The latest monthly NHS performance data has been published.

This shows that an estimated 7.58 million treatments were waiting to be carried out at the end of January, relating to 6.32 million patients, down slightly from 7.60 million treatments and 6.37 million patients at the end of December.

The BBC reported on these on 14.3.24 and our Chair Geoffrey Bowden was asked to comment.

Some of the longest waiting times for hospital treatment in the country can be found in south-east England, latest NHS figures have shown.

Patients should be seen within a target time of 18 weeks for routine treatments, but in January, 57% of patients served by University Hospitals Sussex NHS Trust were waiting longer than that target - the third longest in the country.

East Kent Hospitals NHS Trust also featured in the top 10 worst-performing trusts, with 51% of patients waiting longer than 18 weeks.

BBC South East’s health correspondent Mark Norman said both trusts were working hard to bring down their lists and were introducing new clinics and new ways of working.

In Sussex, Geoffrey Bowden, chairman of Healthwatch, Brighton and Hove, said: “There is no quick solution. All we can do is to keep monitoring the services, work with the trust to show where there can be improvements into the delivery of care and trust that they will actually do that.

“They all want to do well. They do not want to see waiting lists.”