Coronavirus – 12 month waits for hospital care in England worst since 2008

The number of people waiting over a year for hospital treatment in England has reached it’s highest level since 2008.

Although patients are meant to be seen within 18 weeks, nearly 140,000 of the 4.35 million on the waiting list at the end of September had been waiting for over a year.

Surgeons have said that it is “tragic” that patients are being left in pain while waiting for treatment, and others have warned the situation could deteriorate further during the winter months with the NHS seeing rising numbers of Covid patients.

In recent weeks, major hospitals in Leeds, Nottingham, Bradford, Liverpool and Birmingham, all regions that have seen high rates of infection, have announced the mass cancellation of non-urgent treatment.

Professor John Appleby, the Nuffield Trust think tank’s director of research, said the situation was a “real concern”.

He went on to say “It is clear that over the summer months, NHS staff have put in tremendous amounts of work to boost activity across the board. However, the service has fallen short of the tall order of recovering all non-Covid activity between the two waves of this pandemic.”

Professor Neil Mortensen, president of the Royal College of Surgeons, said that patients had paid a “heavy price”.

“It is tragic to see so many lives put on hold. Each statistic represents someone waiting patiently, potentially in pain, for the treatment they need to get on with living an independent life.

“Older people and poorer people are particularly hard hit by these delays.”

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Posted by Tony May, Partner/head of Clinical Negligence Department, Chadwick Lawrence LLP (tonymay@chadlaw.co.uk ), medical negligence lawyers and clinical negligence solicitors in Huddersfield, Leeds, Wakefield and Halifax, West Yorkshire.

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