By Nick Triggle
Health correspondent
image copyrightGetty Images
The increase in cases from Covid hospitals has left the main hospital services in England in crisis, doctors warn.
NHS data showed that A&E faced increasing delays in admitting extremely sick patients to the wards.
Meanwhile, the total number of people facing one-year waiting for routine treatments is now more than 100 times greater than before the pandemic.
Cancer experts also warn that the interruption of their services was “scary” and would cost lives.
Reports have emerged of hospitals canceling urgent operations – King’s College Hospital in London has discontinued priority two treatments, which are those that need to be done in 28 days.
And the big Birmingham hospital has temporarily suspended most liver transplants.
It occurs after a sudden increase in Covid’s patients in recent weeks.
One in three hospitalized patients has the virus – and in some places it is more than half.
‘I’m strong, but broke’
Paul, 57, from Manchester, had his cancer radiotherapy treatment canceled in early January.
Your tumor – between the lungs and above the heart – cannot be operated on because it is being fed by two arteries, so doctors can only prevent growth.
He had been waiting for radiation therapy since 2020.
“Am I one of the thousands of cancer patients who will die ahead of time because the NHS is prioritizing Covid-19 over cancer patients?
“I am a strong person, but I am broken. My family is rooting for me, but I cannot see them.
“Because it’s cancer, it’s stressful. I’m constantly feeling anxious.”
NHS England Medical Director Prof Stephen Powis said the NHS was facing an “exceptionally difficult challenge”, adding that services would remain under pressure until the virus was under control.
But he emphasized that non-Covid treatment is still going on – with three times as many diagnostic tests and twice as many operations being carried out as in the spring, when the pandemic began.
How are services affected?
The data published by NHS England showed the scale of the impact of dealing with Covid in the main hospital services.
The data published on Thursday showed:
- Nearly 90,000 patients – one in four – admitted to the hospital via A&E waited more than four hours to find a bed
- This included a record of 3,745 that waited more than 12 hours
- There was a record 4.46 million on the waiting list for routine treatment, including knee and hip operations
- More than 192,000 waited more than a year – in February, before the pandemic started, the number was 1,600
- The team had to be relocated to intensive care after Covid’s rise in cases has forced hospitals to increase the number of intensive care beds by a quarter since November
image copyrightGetty ImagesThe cancer numbers date back to November, before the increase in cases.
At that point, the number of urgent cancer tests and treatments being started was at normal levels.
But since then, concerns have arisen that services have been reduced.
Professor Pat Price, from the Catch Up With Cancer campaign, said the services were facing the “biggest crisis” of her 30-year career.
“This is a truly scary scenario,” she added.
And the Royal College of Surgeons warned that the pandemic was having a “calamitous impact” on waiting times for planned surgery.
Sarah Scobie, of the Nuffield Trust think tank, said the services are under “intolerable pressure”, adding that “the worst is yet to come”.
Saffron Cordery of NHS Providers, who represents the heads of hospitals, agreed: “The next few weeks will undoubtedly be the most difficult in the history of the NHS.”