Coronavirus crisis reverses years of NHS waiting list progress as delays soar

The true scale of the damage done to NHS waiting lists by the coronavirus crisis has been laid bare in new data revealing the loss of more than 13 years of progress.

Patients were warned on Thursday to expect long delays to continue for the foreseeable future after official figures showed soaring numbers waiting months for access to basic services.

In particular, experts highlighted a "growing crisis" in access to diagnostic procedures, with 571,459 patients waiting more than six weeks in May for one of 15 standard tests – such as MRI or ultrasound – compared to just 43,230 in the same month last year.

Such tests are crucial for detecting cancers and other serious diseases at an early stage.

Overall, 1,448,357 patients waited longer than the 18-week target to begin hospital treatment in May this year – the highest for any calendar month since December 2007 and more than double the 576,237 of 12 months before.

The waiting list figures come in spite of the fact that many patients with non-urgent conditions have yet to re-engage with the NHS, having stayed away during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Health policy think tanks are warning that, with hospitals set to remain hampered by the need to observe strict infection control and an expected increase in new patients, there is no realistic prospect of clearing the bottlenecks.

The long-term support demanded by many Covid-19 patients is likely to add to the pressure.

The new figures provide further worrying evidence of pandemic's impact on cancer patients, with a near halving of the number of urgent cancer referrals in May compared to last year.

Some 106,535 urgent cancer referrals were made by GPs in England in May 2020, down from 200,599 in May 2019 – a fall of 47 per cent – with experts blaming the impact of coronavirus.

Urgent breast cancer referrals showed an even bigger drop, down from 15,802 in May 2019 to 5,371 in May this year, a fall of 66 per cent.

Siva Anandaciva, chief analyst at the King's Fund, said: "This data lays bare the enormous challenge facing NHS services across the country. The number of patients waiting over a year for planned care is rocketing up, as are waits for key diagnostic tests.

"Hospitals are now starting to see more patients for routine care – but the recovery is still in its early stages, with a long and difficult road ahead."

NHS waiting times improved significantly in the years up to 2007, when the current format for recording performance began following the introduction of targets.

But performance was slipping before the pandemic, and on Thursday the Royal College of Surgeons said the suspension of elective surgery, such as knee and hip replacements, during the height of the outbreak had "placed a bomb under what was already a crisis in NHS waiting times".

Just 62.2 per cent of people were seen within 18 weeks, the records for May show, against a target of 95 per cent.

The number of people having to wait more than 52 weeks to start hospital treatment in England also jumped to 26,029 in May 2020, up from 1,032 in May 2019 and the highest number for any calendar month since September 2009.

The latest data also shows that the number of patients admitted for routine treatment in hospitals in England was down 82 per cent in May compared with a year ago due to the impact of coronavirus.

A total of 54,550 patients were admitted for treatment during the month, down from 295,881 in May 2019.

The BMA Council chair, Dr Chaand Nagpaul, said: "Huge numbers of patients have suffered greatly because of disruption and lack of access to care throughout this pandemic.

"It is absolutely vital, therefore, that the Government urgently delivers what is needed to ensure patients can get the care they need as soon as possible and that NHS staff are adequately supported to meet the rise in demand in the coming months and years ahead."

NHS England figures also show that A&E attendances at hospitals in England were down 33 per cent last month compared with a year ago. A total of 1.4 million attendances were recorded in June, down from 2.1 million attendances in the same month last year.

The figures suggest that people are still staying away from A&E departments because of the coronavirus outbreak.

The year-on-year drop in A&E attendances of 33 per cent in June compares with a fall of 42 per cent recorded in May and 57 per cent in April.

An NHS spokesman said: "Despite responding rapidly to the coronavirus pandemic and the need to ensure over 100,000 patients could receive hospital care, NHS staff also provided more than five million urgent tests, checks and treatment in a safe way during the peak of the virus.

"The overall waiting list has fallen by more than half a million since the onset of Covid but, as more patients come forward, local health services continue work to expand services safely."

Responding to the cancer services statistics, Michelle Mitchell, Cancer Research UK's chief executive, said: "This is yet more worrying evidence of the impact Covid-19 has had on cancer patients and services.

"While it's encouraging that the number of urgent cancer referrals has started to recover since the steep decline in April, the latest figures for May are still worryingly low.

"And we know from local figures that urgent referrals are not yet back to normal levels, well past the peak of the virus."