00:00 Minister, can you give my listeners a commitment now
00:02 that the waiting list figure will not rise any further
00:05 from 7.47 million?
00:08 No, I mean, we know--
00:09 You can't give me that commitment.
00:11 We probably expect, in all honesty,
00:13 for it to peak around in the next few months
00:16 and will then start to come down.
00:17 But I suppose--
00:18 Sorry to talk over you.
00:19 Peak at what, Minister?
00:20 7.6, 7.7?
00:22 Where do you think we might end up?
00:23 I mean, we're almost at the peak,
00:25 but we think it will go slightly higher.
00:27 But it will then start to come down.
00:29 And that's why we're making announcements
00:31 like this right now, so that we are getting
00:33 that capacity and that infrastructure
00:36 so that patients can get their treatments more quickly.
00:39 But yes, we're being honest with people
00:41 that waiting lists, the total number,
00:44 will likely to rise a little bit more
00:46 before it starts to come down.
00:47 But it's how long people are waiting.
00:49 And that's the crucial matter, that waiting lists are--
00:53 in terms of time, are coming down.
00:54 And if you compare in Labour and Wales, for example,
00:57 they haven't managed to eliminate their two-year waits.
00:59 They've still got over 30,000 patients waiting two years
01:02 or more, where Labour run the NHS in Wales.
01:04 And our focus is on getting those waiting times down here
01:08 in England.
01:10 [BLANK_AUDIO]
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