Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 7:21 pm on 9 November 1983.
I share the hon. Gentleman's concern about those figures as representing individuals not just statistics, but I remind him that inpatient waiting lists were shortening rapidly between 1979 and 1982—until the health workers' strike. Waiting lists were shorter in 1981 than for many years previously. They are still shorter than they were in 1978, but unfortunately we are still making up the backlog. The National Health Service suffered as a result of the strike, but patients suffered far more.