Patients in the UK are also “bottom of the pack” when it comes to the amount of time they get with a GP, the research found, with many people reporting difficulty getting a response from their surgery.
A decade ago, the UK was among the best nations for people seeing hospital specialists in less than four weeks, but has now dropped down to being among the poorest performing countries, according to the think tank, which analysed data from ten countries between 2013-2023.
The Commonwealth Fund’s International Health Policy Survey, which has been running for nearly two decades, asked people from Australia, Canada, France, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Sweden, Switzerland, the United States and the UK about their experiences using a range of services including hospital care, GP support and dentistry.
Joint Worst for Year-Long Wait Time
The analysis found the UK has some of the longest reported waiting times to see a specialist and, alongside Canada, has the largest proportion of people waiting a year or more for an appointment. Eleven percent in the UK waited more than 12 months to be seen.Sixty-one percent of UK respondents waited at least four weeks for a specialist appointment in 2023, up from 14 percent in 2013. This compares to the higher performing nations—Australia, Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and the United States—where between 36 percent and 44 percent of people had to wait more than a month. Overall, the best-performing nation in this area was the Netherlands, where 60 percent of patients were seen within a month.
Separate research, highlighted in the report, showed almost half of NHS patients felt that their health deteriorated while waiting for admission to hospital.
The government and NHS England have set a target of eliminating all waits of more than a year by March 2025.
The Health Foundation found the UK was the worst-performing nation when it came to being able to get a response from a GP practice on the same day—although conversely, it was among the better-performing countries when it came to actually being seen on the same or the next day by a family doctor.
Some 53 percent of UK respondents said they received a same-day response, lagging well behind the highest-performing nation (the Netherlands) where 81 percent of people did.
The UK was fourth when it came to actually being seen by a GP on the same or the next day as they made contact with the surgery, on 42 percent, behind the highest performing nations, the Netherlands (50 percent) and Germany (49 percent).
“The UK stands out for difficulties getting a same-day answer for a medical problem,” the authors said, pointing to separate data showing that more patients struggle to get through to their practice on the phone than find it easy.
Sharp Increase in People Not Visiting Dentist
The report also highlighted concerns about access to and cost of dentistry, with 26 percent of people in the UK skipping check ups or foregoing treatment because of the cost in 2023—a sharp increase from just 6 percent in 2013. This placed the UK in the mid table, while the worst performing was New Zealand, where 40 percent of people reported missing dental appointments due to finances.The report, headlined “Under Pressure,” concluded that no one country consistently outperformed all the others in every aspect they were measured on, but said, “On many indicators, the UK ranks among the lower performers, especially in relation to waiting times for hospital services and some aspects of primary care.”
The report did not conclude that more money always guaranteed greater patient satisfaction, finding that while sometimes more funding did equate to shorter waiting times, “higher spending does not deliver better performance in all cases.”
Ruth Thorlby, assistant director of policy at the Health Foundation, said: “These findings show the UK consistently coming near the bottom of the pack on people’s experience of healthcare compared to other high-income countries.
“It sheds yet more light on just how much work the Government has to do to get the NHS back on its feet.”
She added that it was right for the government to prioritise bringing down waiting lists, but said this could only be done “with a concerted effort to improve primary care and ensuring good coordination between hospitals and GPs.”
“National and local health leaders also need to be vigilant against creeping costs denying people access to healthcare,” she said, adding this was especially apparent with the high number who reported skipping dental check-ups.
‘Broken’ NHS
A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: “We inherited a broken NHS and it is unacceptable that so many people are waiting longer than needed for care.“It is our mission to get the health service back on its feet and build an NHS fit for the future. We know that waiting lists are too high, and it is one of the reasons the Health and Social Care Secretary ordered a full independent investigation into the state of the NHS to lay bare the scale of the problem.
“We will tackle head on the biggest issues gripping the NHS by delivering an extra 40,000 appointments every week and learning from good practice across the country, taking the best of the NHS to the rest of the NHS.”
