Wigan patient's two-and-a-half-year wait for hospital treatement

The NHS does not routinely publish details on how long patients have been waiting after two years – categorising them all as waiting for “two years or over”.

To find out how much longer these patients had been waiting, the Press Association sent Freedom of Information requests to 125 non-specialist acute hospital trusts in England.

Trusts were asked how many patients had been waiting for three years in January – in line with the latest available data from the NHS at the time – how many had been waiting for at least four years, and the longest period a patient had been waiting for an appointment.

Figures provided by Wrightington, Wigan and Leigh NHS Foundation Trust (WWL) show one patient had been waiting 139 weeks (around two years and eight months) to undergo colorectal surgery as of the end of January.

WWL deputy chief executive officer Mary Fleming said: “While we cannot comment on individual cases, WWL recognises that some individuals may currently be experiencing waiting times of this length.

“In response to Covid-19, and later, the Omicron variant, there was a national directive to suspend waiting lists and WWL, regrettably had to postpone a number of planned admissions for surgery.

“As we work through these waiting lists, the Trust is now on track to eliminate 104-week-waits this year, unless patients opt to wait for surgery.

“Our staff continue to dedicate themselves to treating patients as soon as possible based on clinical need.

"We are contacting patients directly when we can offer new dates for appointments or surgeries, and it is vital that appointments are kept once a date is offered.

"If, for any reason, a patient cannot attend an appointment, we would appreciate it if they could notify us as soon as possible, so that their appointment time can be given to other patients to continue to help us address our waiting lists.”

No-one is saying whether the unnamed Wigan patient has now had the surgery or not.

From the 69 trusts that responded, 91 patients had been waiting for at least three years, with at least eight waiting for four years or more.

NHS England data shows that a total of 23,778 people in England were waiting more than two years to start routine hospital treatment at the end of January – around nine times the 2,608 people who were waiting longer than two years in April 2021.

While there could be important caveats behind the data – such as patients choosing to delay their care for personal reasons or data anomalies – the figures suggest that many patients have been left waiting in pain or have been suffering for years.

Prof Neil Mortensen, president of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, said: “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.”

The Government and NHS England have set the ambition to eliminate all waits of more than two years, except when it is the patient’s choice, by July 2022.

Chris Hopson, chief executive of NHS Providers, which represents NHS trusts, said the health service is still facing huge pressures but trusts are doing “all they can” to reduce patient backlogs.