How to read that number

Small, and consistent. Both halves matter.

Small means this. If somebody has already waited two years, they have not ruined a life and they should not be told that they have. The link between waiting and outcome is real but it is modest, and in that same analysis the waiting was not linked to whether people were in work or to how they rated their own quality of life. If you are reading this at the end of a long wait, that is the sentence for you.

Consistent means this. It points the same way across almost everything measured. So the case for going this week rather than next month does not rest on a catastrophe. It rests on the fact that nothing at all is gained by waiting.

Which gives you the plainest version of the whole course. If you get seen and it turns out the cause was something else, you have lost an afternoon. If you wait and it was an illness, you may lose years. The two mistakes are not the same size.