It has been reported this week that the number of people waiting for non-emergency care at Leicester hospitals is around three times higher than it was in 2011.
Multiple factors to blame
In May 2024, there were 111,037 people on the city’s elective care waiting lists according to the latest NHS figures.
This is compared to 2011, when there were 35,546 people on the lists.
University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust (UHL) said that the longer lists were the result of multiple factors, including the lingering impacts of the pandemic.
During the pandemic, non-urgent care essentially stopped, and there has been much work to do since services re-started to deal not only with new patients joining the lists, but also the backlog of patients that had not been dealt with whilst services were stopped.
In addition, recent and ongoing industrial action and walk outs were blamed for the rise in numbers waiting for care, along with a general increase in demand for services.
Some improvements
Despite the figures showing a significant rise in those waiting for care, a spokesperson for UHL said that progress was being made, particularly on the longest delays.
The data shows that there were 111,037 on the waiting lists in May this year, compared to 111,482 in April, showing a small decrease in numbers.
UHL said there had been a 77% reduction in the number of people waiting 52 weeks or longer in the city for treatment, compared to a national reduction of 18%.
More to do
Chief Operating Officer at UHL, Jon Melbourne, said:
“The last few years have been extremely difficult with increasing demand for services, the pandemic, and industrial action, all putting significant pressure on the NHS. As a result, UHL, and NHS organisations across the country, have people waiting longer than we would like….Whilst we do have more to do, new developments like the East Midlands Planned Care Centre…will mean we can continue to bring waiting lists down…”
“We know that long waits impact on people and their quality of life. That is why our focus, alongside partners, is to continue to make nationally leading progress for patients and communities as we continue to work towards the NHS England target of no-one waiting more than a year for treatment by March 2025.”
Comment
It is absolutely true that long waits for care, even non-urgent care, have huge impacts on patients, and there can be wider implications of risks to patient safety when people are waiting too long for the care that they need.
Whilst the improvements UHL have made in the last twelve months are obviously important, they must not lose sight of just how far they still have to go with waiting lists of people who need care tipping over 100,000. This is significant, and there is clearly still much to be done.
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Danielle Young is a Legal Director in our Medical Negligence team, which is ranked in Tier One by the independently researched publication, The Legal 500, and Commended in The Times Best Law Firms 2024.
If you have any questions about the subjects discussed in this article, please contact Danielle or another team member in Derby, Leicester, or Nottingham on 0800 024 1976 or via our online enquiry form.
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