Twelve month waits for NHS care at highest since 2008

Figures from NHS England show that nearly two million patients have been waiting for longer than the target time of 18 weeks for routine care, and 111,000 have been left for longer than twelve months.

The numbers of patients commencing treatment for cancer and getting urgent checks are also below the levels seen a year ago.

However, NHS England have said that “progress” was being made, and pointed out that an increasing number of patients were starting to be seen, although there are now warnings that the service may need to be cut back again as Covid admissions to hospital continue to rise.

Around 500 patients are being admitted to hospital each day with the disease, which is double the number two weeks ago.

Health Secretary Matt Hancock said the UK was in a “perilous” position and the ability for non-Covid patients to be seen by the NHS was under threat.

Professor Michael Griffin, president of the Royal College of Surgeons in Edinburgh, said the increasing number of hospital admissions was leading to even mote core services being curtailed.

As well as hospitals cutting back on diagnostic checks and operations as they “prepare for an influx of Covid patients”, Professor Griffin also warned that there would be large numbers of “invisible” cancer patients who had not yet been diagnosed.

Macmillan Cancer Support’s Sara Bainbridge, said the disruption brought about by the pandemic was having a “traumatic impact” on cancer patients and warned that “cancer must not become the ‘forgotten C’ during this pandemic.”

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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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