NHS trust’s waiting lists rise past 51,000 MP warns of ‘devastating consequences’
RECENT NHS figures have revealed that 51,192 people are on waiting lists at the Pennine Acute Hospitals NHS Trust.
These figures also reveal that 1,690 people have waited for more than a year for an appointment, and 48 people had been waiting more than 2 years.
Rochdale MP, Tony Lloyd, said: “If people in Rochdale can’t get the timely care they deserve, there will be devastating consequences.
“Our doctors, nurses, and other health care staff do amazing work, trying to see as many people as they can and quality care.
“But there’s only so much they can do after a decade of Tory cuts and without the staff numbers they need.
“The coming winter weeks are bound to be the most challenging for the NHS. Ministers must fix the stalling vaccination programme, resolve the immediate crisis in social care and bring forward a long term plan to recruit the health care staff we so desperately need.”
In March 2020, at the outbreak of the Covid pandemic, there were 4,235,970 people on the NHS waiting list in England.
Nationally, the standard of 92% of people seen provide within 18 weeks of a referral has not been met since 2016.
However, the pandemic had a devastating effect on an already-fragile NHS, with the national waiting list is now 37.7 per cent higher than it was before Covid-19 hit the UK (an increase of 1,598,451 people). The current figure means that just over 1 in 10 people in England are on the NHS waiting list (10.3 per cent). The Government is yet to publish its plan to address the vast NHS waiting list, with hospitals around the country already reporting unsustainable pressure and an inability to provide high quality care.
Nationally, the NHS is short of 100,000 staff, including 7,000 doctors and 40,000 nurses.