Wrong direction: number of Wigan patients waiting for non-urgent ops rising

The data comes as new health secretary Wes Streeting said the NHS has been "wrecked".

NHS England figures show 55,222 patients were waiting for non-urgent elective operations or treatment at Wrightington, Wigan and Leigh NHS Foundation Trust (WWL) hospitals at the end of May – up from 54,550 in April, and 52,491 in May 2023.

Of those, 2,618 (five per cent) had been waiting for longer than a year.

The median waiting time from referral at an NHS Trust to treatment at tWigan hospitals was 15 weeks at the end of May – the same as in April.

Nationally, 7.6 million people were waiting to start treatment at the end of May. This was up slightly from 7.57 million at the end of March and the first time the NHS waiting list has risen in seven months.

"It’s clear to anyone who works in or uses the NHS that it is broken," Mr Streeting said, as he launched a new probe into conditions in the health service.

"Unlike the last government, we are not looking for excuses. I am certainly not going to blame NHS staff, who bust a gut for their patients.

"This Government is going to be honest about the challenges facing us, and serious about solving them."

Separate figures show 1.7 million patients in England were waiting for a key diagnostic test in May – a rise on 1.6 million in April.

At WWL, 10,101 patients were waiting for one of 14 standard tests, such as an MRI scan, non-obstetric ultrasound or gastroscopy at this time.

Of them, 2,344 (23 per cent) had been waiting for at least six weeks.

Other figures show cancer patients at WWL facilities are not being seen quickly enough.

The NHS states 85 per cent of cancer patients with an urgent referral should start treatment within 62 days.

But NHS England data shows just 75 per cent of cancer patients urgently referred to WWL May began treatment within two months of their referral.

That was down from both 77 per cent in April, and 80 per cent in May 2023.

Sarah Scobie, deputy director of research at the Nuffield Trust, said the NHS faces an "enormous uphill battle".

"Fixing it will mean addressing the structural vulnerabilities which left the NHS in a weak position going into the pandemic," she added.

She said this will include "underinvestment in buildings and equipment and improving funding flows to out-of-hospital services like GPs and district nursing".

Prof Sir Stephen Powis, NHS national medical director, said: "Frontline teams are continuing to work exceptionally hard under significant pressure to provide the best care they can for patients, but everyone recognises that access and waiting times are currently far from what the public have a right to expect.

"Despite the challenges, it is vital that people come forward when they have health concerns - a huge amount of work is going on to diagnose more cancers at an earlier stage, so if you do have worrying symptoms, it’s important to see your GP as soon as possible.

"Everyone working in the health service is committed to working with the government, and with patients and the public, to tackle these challenges, to improve performance and quality in core services, and in the longer term to build an NHS fit for the future. "