Newcastle's hospitals bucked a worrying national trend during April by reducing their waiting list for surgery for the first time since the pandemic.
While there are still more than 96,000 people waiting for elective surgery at the Newcastle Hospitals NHS Trust which runs the Freeman and the RVI, that's around a thousand less than a month earlier. This comes despite rises at the other four acute hospital trusts in our region, which echo the national situation which sees six and a half million people waiting for treatment.
In Newcastle progress has also been made to reduce the number of people waiting more than a year and more than two years for treatment respectively - but this remains a real issue.
