Amid growing UK health care crisis, nearly 8 million patients are waiting for care, data shows
Experts are warning of a growing health care crisis in England, as millions of U.K. residents are waiting for medical attention.
As of July 2024, 7.62 million patients were on the waiting list for care, with 6.39 million in need of specific medical treatment, according to the latest Referral to Treatment (RTT) data from the National Health Service (NHS), England’s publicly funded health care system.
The average wait time for treatment is 14 weeks, but more than three million patients have been waiting for over 18 weeks — and it’s been more than a year for nearly 300,000 of them.
Dr. Marc Siegel, senior medical analyst for Fox News and clinical professor of medicine at NYU Langone Medical Center, appeared on "Fox & Friends" to share his concerns about the situation.
"This is a huge warning for us," he said.
"The National Health Service, which started in 1948 with the great idea to take care of everyone in England, is broken," he went on.
"We’re talking about nearly eight million people there who are waiting for health care … many more than 18 weeks. How could you wait 18 weeks if you’re having a heart problem or you have an infection?"
Although the problem is not as extreme in the U.S., Siegel warned that it can be a struggle to get timely care stateside.
"Even here … 26% of the people in the U.S. are waiting more than two months for their health care already," he told Fox News.
"Even people who are getting it from their employers are waiting."
As far as what is causing the delay in care, Siegel said, "The first problem is that Kamala Harris and others are talking about coverage all the time — but coverage doesn’t mean care."
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"You’ve got your coverage, you’ve got your insurance, maybe you’ve got public insurance — almost 50% of the U.S. already has Medicare or Medicaid — but do you have a doctor? Do you have access to the care you need? That’s the question, and that’s [being] obscured."
Siegel added, "We’re heading toward a time of personalized solutions, which are very exciting, but they’re expensive."
The doctor also discussed the potential problem of illegal immigrants using medical services, which could delay American citizens from seeing their doctors.
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"Illegal migrants homeless on the streets, with illnesses that are spreading, flooding the emergency rooms — that’s going to be a greater and greater problem, whether you give them health insurance or not," Siegel said.
"But if you give them health insurance, that breaks the bank."