Decade of neglect means NHS unable to tackle care backlog, report says

Exclusive: Government-commissioned paper pinpoints budget squeeze as key reason for service's loss of capacity

A decade of neglect" by successive Conservative administrations has weakened the NHS to the point that it will not be able to tackle the 7 million-strong backlog of care, a government-commissioned report has concluded.

The paper by the King's Fund health thinktank says years of denying funding to the health service and failing to address its growing workforce crisis has left it with too few staff, too little equipment and too many outdated buildings to perform the amount of surgery needed.