Facts
In a comment piece in The Telegraph, Rishi Sunak claimed the government has “got 18-week waits down by 90%”
Patients waiting longer than 18 weeks for non-emergency treatment in NHS England has actually risen since January 2023, as Full Fact comments.
Sunak was perhaps referring to 18-month waits, which have indeed fallen.
Verdict
Sunak misled The Telegraph’s readers.
The misleading statement remained intact for over a month before being corrected and the following footnote added: “CORRECTION: An earlier version of this article reported that NHS 18-week waiting lists were down by 90 per cent. This was a production error and should have read 18 month waiting lists. We are happy to correct the record.”
The original false statement, which appeared in the main newspapers, will have been seen by hundreds of thousands of readers. The online correction a month later will have been seen by very few. To illustrate the problem there were 499 comments made about the article, with the most recent on February 11th. The correction was made after March 1st.
We emailed Rishi Sunak’s office and Downing Street offering them the chance to respond. The email was received, but no reply.