Record numbers of children wait for NHS care in England

Sick children’s health problems are getting worse as record numbers wait up to 18 months for NHS care, doctors treating them have warned.

The number of under-18s on the waiting list for paediatric care in England has soared to 423,500, the highest on record. Of those, 23,396 have been forced to wait over a year for their appointment.

Delays facing children and young people are now so common that Dr Jeanette Dickson, the chair of the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges, the body representing all UK doctors professionally, warned that children are “the forgotten casualties of the NHS’s waiting list crisis”.

Full article in The Guardian, 17 September 2023