The number of people waiting to receive hospital treatment continues to rise, with 4.7 million people stuck on a waiting list by the end of February in England. This is the highest number since 2007, highlighting the impact of a year in which the NHS focused on Covid patients at the expense of many others. BBC News has the story.
Around 4.7 million people were waiting for routine operations and procedures in England in February – the most since 2007, NHS England figures show.
Nearly 388,000 people were waiting more than a year for non-urgent surgery compared with just 1,600 before the pandemic began.
During January and February, the pressure on hospitals caused by Covid was particularly acute.
NHS England said two million operations took place despite the winter peak.
However surgeons said hospitals were still under huge pressure due to the second wave of Covid, which had led to “a year of uncertainty, pain and isolation” for patients waiting for planned treatment.
Tim Mitchell, Vice-President of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, has asked how much longer those whose treatments have been delayed can be expected to wait.
Although the most urgent operations for cancer and life-threatening conditions went ahead, hundreds of thousands of patients waiting for routine surgery such as hip and knee operations, cochlear implants and vascular operations had their treatment cancelled or postponed.
People have been patient as they’ve seen the battering the pandemic has given the NHS, but how much longer can they be expected to wait?
This news again highlights the importance of Professor Karol Sikora’s oft-repeated, yet consistently ignored proposal for a Government press conference to be held which is entirely dedicated to non-Covid related illnesses.
Worth reading in full.
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And us sceptics are accused of “Having blood on our hands” !!!!
The BBC: It’s shocking so many people are waiting for hospital treatment due to the NHS focusing on COVID for an entire year.
Also the BBC: WE’RE ALL GOING TO DIE FROM COVID. STAY AT HOME! SAVE LIVES! PROTECT THE NHS!
It’s like how the BBC are constantly reporting on how racist and horrible we are, how environmentally unfriendly we are, how our behaviour is poison and has to change … and then reports with total amazement how children’s mental illness is rising.
To put this in perspective, there were 77,161 more deaths in England and Wales in 2020 than 2019. That’s the absolute cap on China Virus kills, even if you attribute every single extra death to it and ignore suicides and people dying of neglect or any other medical cause.
If historians are not a prohibited profession in the New Normal, they will look back on this and ask what mass lunacy gripped the world to cause this insane response to such a relatively mild contagion.
… and this doesn’t take into account the shift of what would have been mortality in the mild year of 2019 into 2020. The two years taken together show an average level of mortality judged against the preceding 25 years.
True, 2019 was down 10,748 on 2018 (all figures not adjusted for our increasing official population).
When you adjust for population and the age of people dying, 2008 and every preceding year was worse.
yes – 2020 was a little worse than a handful of previous years but better than every year before 2008
https://www.ons.gov.uk/aboutus/transparencyandgovernance/freedomofinformationfoi/deathsintheukfrom1990to2020
There is also the issue that, all other things being equal, we expect our annual mortality to rise year on year for the next decade or so, due to the growth in the elderly demographic as baby boomers enter old age.
And I’ve been reading on FB someone being refused an ECG because they wouldn’t wear a mask.
This could go on a long time.
This behaviour makes my blood boil.
Yes – that’s really absurd : breathlessness is one of the common symptoms of cardiac problems.
A symptom of Severe Anaemia too, which kills, depending on its cause.
FIRST, do no harm.
Well that went out of the window in 2020.
When you pay your National Insurance premiums you have entered into an agreement, a contract, with the ‘State’. This is to ensure that via the National Health Service all your medical needs will be met. The State, the Government, the NHS, are all in breach of this contract and should be sued for a breach of contract. They have taken your money but do not want to deliver their side of the agreement.
Sue the NHS Trust Chief Executives, over and over again.
That’s a great idea, please let us know how it works out for you.
You’re talking about a free market system where you’re paying taxes in exchange for government services. That’s not what’s going on here. You’re paying taxes cause the government demands more money. You’re not paying towards a defined outcome, you’re paying to fund the government’s plans, no matter if they’re beneficial to you or not.
As has been said before, countless many times: taxation is theft.
Oh but aren’t the population just an inconvenience for the saintly NHS and its hero’s? It’s so fragile we must all protect it. I worked for it for 30 plus years, then I mostly felt I was trying to protect the patients from the organisations desire to churn through targets and now I feel livid about how it has presented itself. I will avoid it as much as I possible can from now on.
“… hospitals were still under huge pressure due to the second wave of Covid …”
No – it was due to the political-administrative decisions.
What is interesting (?) is that the backlog has continued to rise at every stage, with no easing during periods when there was clearly no risk.
Yep well said Rick. Also what is that mong talking about. The battering the pandemic gave the nhs? Most serious operations went ahead. No they fucking didn’t. People were dying at home by the thousand because they were not getting the proper care. At no time was the nhs overwhelmed and if it was busy it was only at the very most for four months out of twelve. So why was the number of missed appointments increasing during the quieter times. That is all because of your irrational idiotic decision to focus solely on covid. YOUR DECISION, nothing to do with the government, these were all your choices. All these deaths are on your watch you useless fuck.
Hang on a minute. I think people are being a bit unfair
What about all the rainbows, tick tock dancing and discounts at supermarkets
We’ve had an unprecented amount spent in the name of public health in the last 12 months. Was this money well spent, and could it have been spent differently to give a better return, on public health? Those are the questions the media and opposition should be asking the government.
if we hadn’t locked down we could have afforded a Mars base and had a healthier population
Not just hospital treatment.
I went for a 30 mile round trip for an eye test Tuesday and was refused access to the clinic because I am mask exempt. They were happy to tell me theyve been turning people away from the start.
I contacted them via email, pointing out they were breaking the law.
I just got a reply confirming they have now put a process in place for this eventuality.
Well done Boston NHS trust,masks were only introduced nine months ago, but you have the exempt procedure this week!
Shame about all the people you’ve turned away in the meantime
I have just cancelled my NHS appointment for a check up on a skin graft after a removal of a suspect cancer lump. They sent me a letter telling me I will be asked to sanitise my hands and wear a mask on entry and I must carry my appointment letter and a form of ID at all times whilst on their premises. I won’t be treated like a disease vector and I won’t be carrying ID on their premises. I don’t feel like the NHS is there to serve the public any more.
It seems to vary by hospital trust. I had a broken wrist treated in Feb/March, and over several visits for x-ray/scans/cast and then removal of cast I attended mask free and was only asked to tell the doorman why I was there and to sanitise hands on entry (not enforced just asked). However, I have an ongoing complaint against an A&E nurse who basically assaulted me when I removed my mask after 2 hours wearing it waiting for my initial treatment. I was having an autistic meltdown (basically a panic attack) and couldn’t wear it any longer.
I had a broken finger (mallet injury) back along. Its ‘healed’ and won’t bend. Physiotherapy? Not even offered.
Just had our weekly covid “update” from Shropshire Council informing us that in the last week in the whole of the county there were 3 hospital beds occupied by Covid? patients and no Covid related? deaths, but of course then there is the usual ” don’t forget to social distance, wear your masks, blah,blah, etc, etc plus a list of testing centres and how you can receive your own testing kits and how to use them.
WHAT THE BLEEDIN HELL FOR?
NO DEATHS AND 3 COVID,? PATIENTS IN HOSPITAL IN THE WHOLE OF THE COUNTY!!!!
Hi. I am being attacked for my skeptic view. They are saying that Brazil’s death rate is the cost of a zero lockdown policy (see link below). I know earlier Peru and Brazil could be compared being in similar temperate zones (Peru had very stringent measures but higher deaths), but now this seems not to be the case. Please could someone help with a rebuttal to the argument?
https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/brazils-covid-19-response-cost-thousands-lives-says-humanitarian-group-2021-04-15/
They make all sorts of claims, but we have no way of knowing whether they are true, and this is why they make them.
The Canadian PM got caught out claiming we in the UK are now in a terrible 3rd wave, worse than anything before. The UK government responded by saying no, and then claiming in turn that Canada is in a terrible wave. It’s all Project Fear.
“People have been patient as they’ve seen the battering the pandemic has given the NHS, but how much longer can they be expected to wait?”
Fixed it:
People have been patient as they’ve seen the battering the lockdown has given the NHS, but how much longer can they be expected to wait?
I suppose my own experience might be helpful here.
Just after Lockdown began in 2020 I was informed that I could now take Riveroxaban instead of Warfarin (even though previously I was told it was unsuitable for my condition, the GP looked it up in front of me…). OK, I thought, it means that I don’t have to go into hospital for blood tests every few weeks, which is as pleasant for me as it was agenda-suiting for them.
To make the change I had to have about 3 blood tests – ironic!
One of these picked up severe anaemia, really severe. Red Blood Cell count about 1/2 what it should be. Panic stations, in a terribly British way, meaning that the cause of this needed to be ascertained swiftly.
1st diagnostic option, is there an internal bleed?
I had, after a few weeks (remember, this was panic stations) a colonoscopy and an endoscopy. A couple of weeks later I had the official results – nothing to see here.
Part two of checking for an internal bleed, a few weeks later (remember again, this is panic stations) I went in to a deathly empty hospital, so empty that I could go in and out without meeting anyone, and had a CAT scan. A week or so later I went in to see a consultant – once again, nothing to see here.
Part three of internal bleed – “We’ll give you a camera endoscopy” he says. More than a couple of months later I was called in to swallow the camera and carry the receiver for a day. A letter from one consultant said my RBC level had recovered to 80 odd, about 2/3rds of what it should be. How heartening. One of those giving me the equipment asked how long it had been since the previous scan, and I said I simply couldn’t remember, it had been so long. A couple of months later I have still not been informed of the result of this, let alone had checked that the camera has in fact passed through and not taken up a three year residency somewhere in my gut.
No idea what the second diagnostic option might be, which makes sense because I’ve not heard whether I’ve completed the first diagnostic procedure yet. It may not be a bleed (seems unlikely) but something is trying to knock me over. Every day that goes by, who knows what is happening.
We’re now almost a year on from the start of the first part of trying to diagnose what is causing my anaemia and still haven’t completed what could have been done inside a week. I haven’t been prescribed anything, and am taking iron supplements to assist (stopping them for a week before the camera endoscopy put me way back just as I was beginning to feel normal), as this seems to be the sensible thing to do. I’ve seen several consultants face-to-face, despite my resultant breathlessness meaning mask-wearing on my part would be idiocy and I don’t, so kudos to them for that. I’ve had one discussion with my GP, on the phone from her home, and a parcel man visited her in the middle of it!
The diagnostic process for what could have killed me back along, and still affects me noticeably now, has been appallingly slow and ponderous. What can I do? Not a lot, especially when I know there are estimated to be a minimum of 5,000 people with undiagnosed and untreated heart problems so severe they could drop dead on the spot. My local hospital trust has, allegedly, one person currently inpatient with a positive Covid test – so way below false positive rates – but their treatment and diagnosis rates for other disease remains slower than a slow thing on a slow day. And yet there must be hundreds of people in my position, from one cause or another, just in my vicinity.