Coronavirus: Patients face long waits for hospital ops in England

The number of hospital operations being carried out in England is still well below normal levels, figures show.

The data for September showed just over 200,000 operations were carried out - down by a third on pre-pandemic levels.

It has led to growing long waits with 140,000 of the 4.35m people on the waiting list having spent over a year waiting - the highest level since 2008.

And there are fears the situation could get worse as hospitals have started to cut back even further in recent weeks.

Hospitals in Bradford, Leeds, Nottingham, Birmingham and Liverpool have announced the mass cancellation of non-urgent work in the past few weeks.

Nuffield Trust director of research Prof John Appleby said the situation was a "real concern".

He said hospitals were facing a real battle to keep non-Covid services going, pointing out that since the end of September the number of Covid patients in hospital increased from just over 2,000 to 10,000.

"It is clear that over the summer months NHS staff have put in tremendous amounts of work to boost activity across the board.

"However, the service has fallen short of the tall order of recovering all non-Covid activity between the two waves of this pandemic."

Mother-of-three Anoushka Kurkjian found a cyst on her breast in June.

She sought medical advice but was told it was benign, but remained concerned because she was in pain.

As a last resort - three months later - the 41-year-old built up the courage to go to her local A&E and was diagnosed with breast cancer.

She had been afraid to go into A&E because of the coronavirus.

She was diagnosed with breast cancer which has now spread to her lymph nodes.

"If it had been a year ago, I would have gone in earlier.

"I am now undergoing chemotherapy and have lost my hair. My breast cancer has spread and I am scared," she said.

"I feel very angry that I was not diagnosed earlier. I wish I could say to women - seek treatment, don't be deterred - yes Covid is a factor but there's a lot more going on out there."

But NHS bosses have announced that cancer services are now back to seeing the normal number of patients.

In September, both the numbers getting urgent check-ups and those starting treatment were back to pre-pandemic levels.

But it still leaves a huge backlog of patients who have gone without cancer care.

Over the past six months, 320,000 fewer patients have received urgent check-ups and nearly 35,000 fewer have started treatment compared with the same period last year.

An NHS England spokeswoman said: "The NHS message to the public has always been clear - do not delay, help us to help you by coming forward for care."