One-year waiting list for routine treatment hits record high at Sheffield Children's Trust

The King's Fund think tank says there is a “mountain to climb” to tackle delays caused by Covid-19, after NHS data showed more than 100,000 people across England had been waiting at least a year for non-urgent care – the most for more than a decade.

NHS statistics show 190 patients had been on the waiting list for 52 weeks or more for elective operations or treatment at Sheffield Children's NHS Foundation Trust at the end of August.

This was the highest figure for the month since comparable local records began in 2011 – the previous August, just two patients had been delayed as long.

According to NHS rules, patients referred for non-urgent consultant-led elective care should start treatment within 18 weeks.

Across England, the number of people waiting a year or more hit 111,000, a near tenfold increase from 1,236 in August 2019 and the highest figure since 2008.

Siva Anandaciva, chief analyst at The King’s Fund, said: “NHS staff are working hard to restore services and find innovative new ways to care for patients, but as these figures show, there is a mountain to climb before waits for routine NHS care return to pre-pandemic levels.

“It now seems unlikely that the highly ambitious targets set for the recovery of NHS performance over autumn will be met, and it is important to be honest with patients and the public about how long people are likely to have to wait for care.”

A combination of the huge treatment backlog, rising Covid-19 hospital admissions, an expected winter surge in demand on services and exhausted and overstretched staff means NHS leaders are “braced for a torrid winter”, he added.

“Much will therefore depend on whether the Government can deliver increased capacity and improvements to the testing system to enable NHS and social care staff to be regularly tested for Covid.”

Of the 8,843 patients waiting for treatment at Sheffield Children's Trust at the end of August, 43% had been doing so for more than the 18-week window.

NHS trusts are expected to make sure no more than 8% of patients are left waiting beyond the 18-week maximum target.

Nationally, 46% of the 4.2 million people waiting at the end of the month had overshot the target time, although this an improvement on 53% in July.

An NHS spokesman said: “Hospitals are carrying out more than a million routine appointments and operations per week, with around three times the levels of elective patients admitted to hospital than in April, as they continue to make progress on getting services back to pre-Covid levels including scanning services which are delivering millions of urgent checks and tests.

“It is obviously vital for patients that this progress continues, and isn't jeopardised by a second wave of Covid infections spiralling out of control."

John Somers, Chief Executive at Sheffield Children’s NHS Foundation Trust said: “Providing quality care to our patients in good time is a priority at Sheffield Children’s. We appreciate this is frustrating for patients and their families and we are working hard to see patients as safely and quickly as possible.

“In March 2020 Sheffield Children’s postponed all non-urgent surgery following NHS England guidance in response to the COVID pandemic. Sheffield Children’s continued to do emergency surgery throughout and also cared for South Yorkshire and Bassetlaw patients requiring emergency surgery during this time.

“In June, we restarted non-urgent surgery and procedures, following national guidance. Since then we have gradually increased the number of patients seen for their appointments, surgery and treatment to ensure that this is done safely. We are working hard across the Trust to see patients whose care was delayed earlier this year due to our collective response to the COVID pandemic. Our outpatient appointments continue to be held as a combination of face to face, telephone and on line appointments.

“In addition to our usual winter preparations at Sheffield Children’s we are pleased to have been provided national funding to support our work in preparing for winter and our ongoing response to COVID. We have done a lot of work across the Trust to ensure the safety of our patients and staff and this funding will help maintain this safe environment as we increase our activity as well as improving our patient journey and to ensure we continue to provide a welcoming environment.”

FROM THE EDITOR

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