NHS on course to miss waiting list target

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It’s all very well setting clear targets in government; the problem comes when they are not met. This looks to be the case for the NHS, which was asked to shorten waiting times for A&E, planned hospital treatment and cancer by the end of this fiscal year. A Guardian analysis has found that it is on course to miss these goals, although an NHS spokesperson was bullish. They told the paper that analysing old data overlooks dramatic improvement in recent weeks, which has got the health service “within a hare’s whisker” of the waiting times target. The NHS has two weeks to get there. Then it has the remainder of its existence to try to stay there.