Responding to new analysis from the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS), released one year after the publication of the NHS' elective recovery plan, and which shows waiting lists are "unlikely to fall significantly in 2023", NHS Providers chief executive Sir Julian Hartley said:

"Trust leaders and their staff have made significant progress in reducing long waits for patients, which is remarkable given the challenging circumstances in which they're operating. Their success in virtually eliminating two-year waits for elective care and being on track to bring down 18-month waits by April is testament to the hard work of frontline teams.

"However, mounting pressures on acute, ambulance, mental health and community services, such as chronic workforce shortages, could hamper efforts to cut the backlog further if left unchecked. A fully funded workforce plan from the government will go a long way to help with this and ensure recovery is sustainable.

"The ongoing strikes are also causing huge disruption to services, and risk undoing hard-won progress made on care backlogs. To bring this to an end, the government needs to talk to unions, urgently, about pay for this financial year."