Soaring number of people on waiting list for treatment
SOARING waiting lists and plummeting numbers of people receiving treatment show the “brutal impact” Covid-19 has had on the NHS.
At University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust, there were 20,013 people on the waiting list for elective treatments, such as hip and knee operations, at the end of April.
That was a 32% jump in a month, from 15,188 in March, and double the 10,095 waiting in April last year.
The NHS cancelled all non-urgent surgeries for three months from April 15, although individual trusts made decisions to stop some treatments in March.
The number of people waiting more than a year for treatment has rocketed from just 35 in March to 281 in April.
The number of people waiting more than six weeks for key diagnostic tests, such as MRIs, CT scans and colonoscopies, was five times higher in April than in March.
That was an increase from 598 people to 2,910 in just a month.
The number of people waiting more than three months also rose rapidly from 47 to 132.
Tests and procedures being carried out plummeted, down from 24,908 in April 2019 to 9,526 in April this year.
The number of people seeing a consultant after an urgent cancer referral from their GP also fell dramatically in April to 1,327, compared to 3,209 in April 2019.
GPs had been asked in March to prioritise particularly urgent referrals and downgrade or avoid referrals where possible.
There were also drops in the number of people starting treatment - down from 287 in April 2019 to 198 in April this year for those who had been referred urgently, and from 499 to 357 for those not urgently referred.
Doctors have expressed concerns people with serious conditions have been put off attending A&E due to Covid-19 fears.
The number of A&E attendances had dropped to 9,218 in April, before recovering slightly in May to a total of 12,620 but they are still down compared to 22,439 visits in April last year.
BMA council chair Dr Chaand Nagpaul said: “These NHS performance figures lay bare the brutal impact of Covid19
on our healthcare services and patient care.
“They show only the early weeks of the pandemic but nonetheless, they confirm the fears of doctors that significant numbers of patients will not have received the care needed and that their conditions could have worsened.
“The shocking drop in the number of GP referrals for cancer treatment – down 60 percent from last year, and GP referrals to specialist care – down three quarters from last year, is incredibly concerning.
“The staggering reduction in patients attending A&E is of great concern, meaning that patients with emergencies are not being treated at a time when overall excess mortality in the UK is amongst the highest in Europe.”
He said two-thirds of doctors who had responded to a BMA survey had little or no confidence that expected demand could be properly managed.
Across England, there were 1.13 million people who had been on NHS waiting lists for more than 18 weeks at the end of April - a jump by almost a third in a month.
There were also 468,622 people who have been waiting for more than six weeks for key diagnostic tests - 55.7% of the waiting list - up from 85,446 in March.
Those waiting to see a consultant after an urgent cancer referral also face longer waits - 88% waited less than two weeks in April, the lowest proportion since records began in October 2009. However, this was on top of a huge drop in referrals down from 181,873 in March to 79,573 in April.
Lynda Thomas, Chief Executive at Macmillan Cancer Support, said: “Today’s cancer waiting time results are a sobering demonstration of the serious impact coronavirus has had on cancer services across England.
“The pandemic has wreaked havoc on cancer care, with 2,500 fewer* people starting vital treatment to save, extend or improve their lives and a staggering 130,000 fewer seeing a specialist for suspected cancer after an urgent GP referral, than we would expect under normal circumstances.
“Instead, many people with cancer are being left to wait for next steps in fear, worrying about the long-term implications for their health, their families and their future.”
Today’s cancer waiting time results are a sobering demonstration of the serious impact coronavirus has had