Patients are being forced to wait up to four years for hospital care as new data reveals the shocking scale of the NHS backlog.
Until now official NHS England data on the treatment backlog has only revealed that 24,000 patients have been waiting for “more than two years”.
However data released from 60 NHS trusts following Freedom of Information requests shows 58 patients have been waiting for more than three years. Four of these have been waiting for at least four years.
The real number of those waiting many years is much higher, as 65 more acute non specialist trusts refused to respond.
Four of the five known worst performing trusts refused to provide requested data on waits of more than three or four years.
The waiting list was already at a record 4.4 million in England before the pandemic following a record NHS funding squeeze. It has now risen to 6.1 million.
Patients and campaign groups have described the devastating toll that living in agony is having as they wait for years to find out when they will be seen by a hospital specialist after being referred by their GP.
More than a quarter of the longest waiters are in line for trauma or orthopaedic care, which covers hip and knee replacements.
The charity Versus Arthritis called for the NHS to routinely publish the data.
Policy lead Tracey Loftis said: “Hundreds of thousands of people with arthritis are waiting for treatment in increasing pain, their mobility and quality of life getting worse.
“As longer waits increase the chances of complications, waiting several years for surgery is completely unacceptable.
“The NHS must start publishing how long people are waiting beyond two years for treatment and report separately on hip and knee replacement waiting times, one of the worst-hit specialities in planned care. It is imperative that progress is made at reducing the backlog of people waiting for these operations.”
One patient in Milton Keynes waited for 239 weeks (four years and five months) for care from the endocrinology department.
Another patient has waited for 104 weeks in pain for care within the pain management service at Frimley Health NHS Trust.
Professor Neil Mortensen, president of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, told the news agency: “It is shocking that people have been waiting years for planned NHS hospital treatment.
“Waiting in limbo for a planned hip, hernia or ear operation can cause real emotional and physical distress.”
Feryal Clark, Labour’s shadow health minister, said: “We entered the pandemic with record waiting lists thanks to a decade of Tory mismanagement of our NHS.”
An NHS England spokesman said: “NHS staff are working flat out to clear the backlogs that have inevitably built up throughout the pandemic with local teams using innovative approaches to reducing waits, such as one-stop shops and Super Saturdays, all while we continue to see busy emergency services and high numbers of hospitalised Covid patients.
“The NHS is expecting a busy Easter weekend for its staff across the country and we continue to urge people to come forward for the care they need, using NHS 111 online where possible.
“The NHS is here for you.”
- An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated the longest wait was in West Suffolk where a patient was waiting for 300 weeks, almost six years, for care from ear, nose and throat medics. West Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust has never had a patient waiting for 300 weeks. The longest period of time that a patient was waiting to start treatment after being referred was 172 weeks.
