TORY ministers have been urged to make reducing NHS waiting times a priority after the number of people in England on lists to start routine hospital treatment rose to a record high. 

The latest figures from NHS England, published today, show that 5.45 million people were waiting to start treatment at the end of June, the highest number since records began in August 2007, as the health service remains under pressure from the pandemic-related backlog of care. 

The number of patients waiting more than a year to start treatment was 304,803 in June – down from 336,733 the previous month but about six times the number from a year earlier.