The number of people waiting more than a year for an operation has rocketed from 1,600 to 400,000, the Health Secretary has told Cabinet.
Steve Barclay highlighted the incredible 24,900% increase since before the pandemic as Rishi Sunak warned the country faces a "challenging" winter ahead.
At a Cabinet meeting, ministers discussed the spiralling NHS waiting lists, soaring inflation and strikes hitting swathes of the public sector.
Mr Barclay "set out some of the issues facing the health system where the pandemic had significantly exacerbated pressures'', according to No10.
But Labour said the Health Secretary was attempting to pin the blame on the pandemic with a massive NHS backlog pre-dating Covid.
Last week the public spending watchdog the National Audit Office also warned that Tory plans to reduce long health service waits were at a serious risk.
Shadow Health Secretary Wes Streeting said: "The Conservatives failed for years before the pandemic to treat patients or provide ambulances on time.
"Steve Barclay is returning to the discredited Conservative script claiming that Conservative NHS backlogs are Covid backlogs.
He added: "But he can't explain why the NHS went into the pandemic with record long waiting lists and 100,000 staff shortages".
"It’s not that the Conservatives didn’t fix the roof when the sun was shining, they dismantled the roof and ripped up the floorboards."
No10 also said that there was no discussion of possible energy blackouts this winter at the Cabinet session.
But they insisted the Government is "preparing for all eventualities" on energy supply.
"We are confident that we will continue to have good provision throughout the winter months," the PM's official spokesperson added.
"We do have quite a diverse energy provision. Offshore wind continues to provide a huge amount of our energy, particularly during the winter months."
At a session of the Treasury Committee an official on the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) also issued a warning about the coming year amid rising inflation and household bills.
Economist David Miles said: "2023 is going to be a very difficult year, very likely, but the years after it will not be quite as bad".
