The number of cancelled NHS operations has trebled due to staff shortages, according to Labour Party analysis.
Labour estimates that around 30,000 operations were cancelled by NHS hospitals last year due to staff shortages.
Their analysis, based on freedom of information requests to NHS trusts, projects that around 158,000 operations were cancelled in total for non-clinical reasons by NHS trusts in 2021/22.
Workforce shortages were the most common reason, accounting for one in five of all cancellations for non-clinical reasons, they said.
Other reasons included bed shortages, equipment failure, administrative errors and adverse weather.
The opposition said they would address the crisis by training a “new generation of doctors and nurses”, double the number of medical school places and train 10,000 new nurses and midwives each year.
They promised to double the number of district nurses qualifying every year and to train 5,000 new health visitors
Labour said they would pay for the overhaul by abolishing non-dom status, which allows wealthy foreigners to avoid tax in the UK.
- The number of cancelled operations has doubled since 2018/19 when the total was around 79,000, according to Labour analysis.
- NHS Digital data shows that staff vacancies in the NHS are at a record high.
- More than 133,000 full-time equivalent posts are unfilled.
- An average of 54,581 NHS staff were off sick in England in the seven days to December 4.
Wes Streeting, Labour’s shadow health secretary, said: “Patients are forced to wait longer for vital operations because the Conservatives have failed to train enough staff over the past 12 years.
“Having operations cancelled causes huge disruption to patients, and prevents them from being able to get on with their lives.”
Saffron Cordery, interim chief executive at NHS Providers, said: “These worrying findings show just how much pressure trusts are under due to chronic staff shortages.”
50 out of 122 Acute trusts (40%) responded to Labour’s FoI request. The estimated totals were calculated by extrapolating from the responses received.
A department of health spokesperson said: “Given the response rate from trusts to these FoIs, it is misleading to suggest that 30,000 operations were cancelled due to staffing shortages.
“Thousands of elective appointments and procedures had to be cancelled during the pandemic to protect the NHS, and since then we’ve been focused on delivering the biggest catch-up programme in health history - virtually eliminating the longest two-year waits for treatment.”