Just picking on this one!! Are they though? Is there any actual evidence?
In my (admittedly just one case!!) experience, this isn't the case.
It was agreed in April by my surgeon that he would carry out revision surgery on my spine after last year's operation failed. Normally this is an 18 week waiting list. Here we are roughly six months later and I still don't have a date booked in - plenty of promises to get this fixed in the next four weeks but no actual date in the diary. Now there's a consultant strike on the horizon which really isn't go to do anything to shorten the waiting times!