Hospital waiting lists: Bedfordshire Hospitals Trust’s busiest services Bedford News

NHS hospitals in England are under severe pressure, with waiting lists reaching new records, according to the latest figures.

The number of people awaiting routine hospital treatment rose to 6.4 million, the highest since records began in April 2007.

Trauma and orthopedic departments have the longest waiting lists, with 731,000 patients queuing for treatments such as knee and hip replacements, 55,000 of whom have been waiting for more than a year.

Figures from NHS England, for the end of March, show the proportion of people who have been waiting for 18 weeks or less has fallen to 62.4%, well below the NHS target of 92% and the worst performance in more than ten years. ‘a year.

Professor Stephen Powis, national medical director of NHS England, said hospital teams were making good progress in addressing backlogs, with a record number of diagnostic tests and cancer checks in March, as part of what he described as ‘the most ambitious catch-up plan in the history of the NHS’.

But Dr Tim Cooksley, president of the Society for Acute Medicine, said: ‘All parts of the NHS are unquestionably in trouble.

Here we reveal the Bedfordshire Hospitals Trust hospital services – which includes Bedford Hospital and Luton & Dunstable University Hospital – with the largest waiting lists, as of March 2022, the latest data available.