In 2018 - when this data set was first published - the figures stood at 12.9 million month-long waits, which means that in seven years there has been a near 60% increase.

The data shows a similar story for waits of two weeks or longer. In 2024 there were 67.1 million two-week or longer waits, accounting for 18.3% of all appointments, a 10.2% rise on 2023's figure of 60.9 million. Since 2018, there has been a 43.3% rise in two-week waits, from 46.8 million to 67.1 million.

The Liberal Democrats have called the figures ‘devastating' for patients and said that the government's lack of ambition in not putting forward a legal right for patients to see a GP within seven days showed they had accepted a 'managed decline' of the NHS.

Liberal Democrat Health and Social Care spokesperson, Helen Morgan, said: ‘The previous Conservative government's unforgivable neglect brought us to this point but the Labour government's lack of ambition in rebuilding our health service has been shocking.

‘In their latest mandate to the NHS they refused to back Liberal Democrat calls to give patients a legal right to see their GP in a week. Instead, ministers opted to embrace a managed decline of the health service and it is patients who will bear the brunt of these failings.

‘If the government continues down this path it will only cause more anxieties for families right across the country who have already spent too long suffering with a health service on its knees.'