Politics Live

Speaking on Sky News this morning, the health secretary Wes Streeting overstated the number of people on the NHS waiting list. He said: “There is still more than seven million people on [the] NHS waiting list.”

This is not quite right according to the latest NHS England figures. They show that in January 2025 there were actually about 6.3 million people on the NHS England waiting list for elective care, and about 7.4 million cases. 

As we’ve written many times before, including about a claim Mr Streeting made in February which also overstated the number of people on the waiting list, there are always more cases than people on the list as some people are waiting for treatment for more than one thing.

The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) recently acknowledged the distinction during discussions with Full Fact. It explained that it was concerned by the risk of confusion if the number of patients and the number of cases were used in different contexts, but told us that it would recommend saying “cases where a patient is waiting” in future.

We’ve contacted Mr Streeting’s office and the DHSC about his claim today and will update this blog if we hear back. 

You can read more about NHS waiting lists in our explainer.

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The Office for National Statistics (ONS) has corrected an error on its death statistics dashboard, after Full Fact got in touch.

The error concerned deaths from pneumonia or flu, which we have written about before.

Originally, the dashboard contained a line chart and an associated file of data, which claimed to show the number of people dying from “influenza and pneumonia”.

But strictly speaking, the chart showed the number of deaths from influenza or pneumonia, because not every death involved, or was due to, both conditions. 

This confusion can happen easily, because “influenza and pneumonia” is the name of a category in the International Classification of Diseases, which is widely used to code different causes of death. It has caused problems in the past, when the media reported this data in the mistaken belief that everyone in this category died from flu.

Helpfully, the ONS let us know on 3 April that it had fixed the page, which now refers to deaths caused by “influenza or pneumonia” instead. It fixed a similar problem a couple of years ago. 

We’re grateful to Labour MP Dr Allison Gardner, who corrected a Facebook post that mixed up the number of people and the number of cases on the NHS England waiting list.

Dr Gardner is the fifth MP in the current Parliament to correct a waiting list error after we contacted them. However, others have yet to correct similar errors, even though we have asked them to do so.

Our AI tools found a post by Dr Gardner on Saturday, which originally said there had been a record high of “nearly 8 million people” waiting for treatment under the Conservatives. In fact, as you can see in our waiting lists explainer, the backlog peaked at 6.5 million people—who were involved in about 7.8 million cases.

NHS England began to publish an estimate for the number of people on the waiting list in November 2023. Since then, we have taken action many times to address confusion between estimates for the number of people and the number of cases on the waiting list. The figures differ as some people are awaiting treatment for more than one thing.This latest correction came soon after we launched the #FactsMatter campaign. Find out more about how you can support us in our fight for a better information environment.  

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The Labour MP Mike Reader has corrected a Facebook post that mixed up the number of people and the number of cases on the NHS England waiting list.

Our AI tools found a post by Mr Reader on Saturday, which originally said: “When the government took office last July, there was a staggering backlog of over 7.6 million people waiting for essential treatment.” 

In fact, as you can see in our waiting lists explainer, the backlog at the end of July 2024 was about 7.6 million cases, involving about 6.4 million people—some of whom were waiting for treatment for more than one thing. (These were the same as the figures for the end of June 2024, just before the election.) Mr Reader corrected this yesterday afternoon.

This is a very common source of confusion that we have written about many times since NHS England began to publish an estimate for the number of people on the waiting list in November 2023. 

On BBC 5 Live Breakfast this morning [2:31:40], the Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer discussed a government announcement that means local authorities in England will be obliged to publish annual progress reports in order to access the maximum amount of highway maintenance funding. 

As was previously set out in a government announcement back in December, the total funding of £1.6 billion includes “an extra £500 million” for what the government is now calling the “roads pot”.

While speaking on BBC Radio 5 Live, Mr Starmer said the funding being allocated to local authorities to fill the potholes was “enough for 700 million to be filled”. This appears to be incorrect and the Prime Minister may have misspoken, however. The government’s press release today says that £500 million of this funding could allow seven million potholes to be filled each year, not “700 million”, as the Prime Minister said. 

As we’ve written elsewhere, the average cost of filling a pothole in England and Wales is about £70, which means filling seven million would cost £490 million. So filling 700 million would cost £49 billion, which is far more than the Department for Transport’s entire annual departmental expenditure limit.

Estimates for the number of potholes vary. In January 2025, according to the RAC, the UK was “thought to have more than one million potholes”, though it said the figure varies seasonally. Between 2022 and 2023, the Asphalt Industry Alliance estimated 1.4 million potholes were filled. Whatever the accuracy of these specific figures, it seems unlikely there are 700 million potholes that need to be dealt with.

We’ve contacted Mr Starmer and No 10 about his claim today, and will update this blog if we receive a response.