Hospital waiting lists for treatment in Bury continue to rocket with 79 per cent more patients experiencing delays than since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Under the NHS Constitution, no patient should wait longer than a year to start treatment but in January there were 1,248 Bury patients with such waits. Of these, 120 people had waited more than two years to be seen – as Bury health chiefs expressed fears that it could take up to eight years to clear the backlog in treatment.
When a patient is referred to a consultant-led team of a secondary care provider, they are added to a planned care waiting list with the entry referred to as an ‘incomplete pathway’. The pathway will generally be ended either once the patient receives the awaited treatment or it is confirmed that treatment is not required. In April 2020, essentially the start of the pandemic, there were 14,297 incomplete pathways for Bury patients against a target of no more than 15,800.
