A record 5.6 million people are currently waiting for NHS treatment, with people in the poorest regions waiting nearly twice as long as those in affluent areas, according to data from the King’s Fund think tank.
People in the most deprived parts of the UK are on average 1.8 times more likely to wait over a year for treatment.
Katie Vear, 33, an NHS dental nurse from Chadwell Saint Mary, Essex, has been waiting for treatment for endometriosis for a year.
She first contacted her GP in September 2020 and has been off work since then due to symptoms of pain, nausea, vomiting and weight loss. She was referred to Basildon hospital in March or April 2021 and after being bounced between departments, she was diagnosed with endometriosis in June 2020.
The gynaecology consultant told her she needed an “urgent laparoscopy” to treat the endometriosis. Ms Vear was put on the “urgent list” because if she was put on the “normal list” she was told she would be waiting “a year or two” for treatment.
“That was back in June and since then, the pain has just been getting worse,” she told i. “I’ve lost over two stone now because of nausea and vomiting which is mainly due to the pain. It’s at the point now where my GP can’t control it with the painkillers that she’s prescribing.”
She said she feels “gaslighted” when she phones the hospital to chase up her treatment as she is told there are cancer patients also on the waiting list.
“It makes me feel guilty for phoning up and trying to see where I am on the list. They just say ‘we can’t give you the date, we don’t know, we can’t get into theatres, we can’t get the slots and we’ll let you know when we can’,” she said.
Ms Vear feels “pain constantly” with “really bad period cramps” and every five or ten minutes she feels a “sharp stabbing pain that takes [my] breath away”.
She has been off work for a year and fears that she may not have a job to go back to. She has also missed out on important life events including her cousin’s hen do, as well as her 11-year-old daughter’s last day of year six and first day of secondary school.
“It’s affecting my mental health. It’s affecting my partner’s mental health because he’s having to do everything around the home. We’re trying to stretch his wage as far as we can to pay the mortgage and everything but it’s not good,” she added.
Ms Vear feels a lack of support from the NHS. “It’s spirit breaking,” she told i, “I know that the NHS are doing their best with what they’ve got but it’s hard to view it that way when there’s something personally affecting you, your life, and your quality of life.
She now feels like her only option is to get the treatment done privately, and is crowdfunding between £6,000 and £7,000.
She said: “I hate the fact that I am at the point now where I feel like my only option is to pay to have this done privately to get my quality of life back.
“I never felt so let down by the NHS. I have kidney problems and they’ve always been there and been able to help and support in a timely manner but this is ridiculous.”
Growing NHS wait times have been a problem for years, but Covid-19 exacerbated the issue causing NHS backlog to spiral out of control.
Delayed treatment is a national problem, with waiting lists increasing by 42 per cent on average. However, this leaps to a 55 per cent increase in the most deprived areas and drops to a 36 per cent increase in the most affluent areas, according to King’s Fund analysis.
A growing waiting list is not necessarily a bad thing, as it demonstrates a successful triage system and that people are seeking treatment when they had previously avoided it.
However, the King’s Fund and Healthwatch England are calling for action to address a postcode lottery as means those living in poorer areas are waiting longer for treatment. In poor areas, seven per cent of people have been waiting at least a year for treatment compared to just four per cent in wealthier regions.
A BBC One Panorama documentary broadcast on Monday evening shared the most recent NHS data and reveal that waiting lists are growing faster in poorer parts of the UK.
A record of 5.6 people are waiting for NHS treatment but predictions of this leaping to 13 million in the coming months are ‘well within the realms of possibility’, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies.
Toby Salt, 42, from Billingshurst, West Sussex, is a father of four and a sculptor. He has previously been diagnosed with Crohn’s disease but has been waiting for a referral to the rheumatology department for well over a year due to severe joint pain in his elbows and knees.
He was referred on for an MRI in June 2020 and has been waiting for a consultant ever since. He has been undergoing NHS physiotherapy, but he told i “there’s only so much they can do without medication”.
“I’m basically housebound at the moment, anything I do I suffer a heavy cost,” he said.
Mr Salt phoned his local hospital last week for an update and was told it could be up to another 35 weeks before he is told an appointment date.
“All I need is a set of medication and my life will improve. It’s just madness. I’m not waiting for an operation, just to talk to someone,” he told i. “I feel completely abandoned I don’t even get the support from my surgery.”
Mr Salt has four kids including one six-year-old and one 11-year-old. He said it was “heartbreaking” when his daughter asked him: “Why can’t you do what normal daddies do?” He is a sculptor by trade but has not been able to keep up with orders.
Like Ms Vear, Mr Salt is also planning to turn to private treatment as a last resort. He said: “Without working it’s not what I want to do. We haven’t got loads and loads of money but I don’t see another option.
“The mental health side of things is dragging me down and I can’t wait another eight months for a consultant.
“I think a lot of people are using this pandemic now as an excuse to give a substandard level of care and it’s purely frustrating.”
Analysis from the Health Foundation shows there were 7.5 million fewer people referred for routine treatment between January 2020 and July 2021 than expected pre-pandemic. The think tank warned the waiting list will “continue to grow” over the next few years as people come forward for treatment.
Boris Johnson said at the beginning of September that NHS backlog is will to “get worse before it gets better”, despite raising tax for health and social care to put the NHS “back on its feet”.
New research from Versus Arthritis, given exclusively to BBC Panorama, reveals that half of people with arthritis and musculoskeletal (MSK) conditions who are currently waiting for surgery are facing a significant average cost of £1739 a year to keep their pain at bay, through things like private healthcare, physio appointments and over-the-counter painkillers.
Debbie Plaskett, 60, from Norfolk, lives with osteoarthritis and was referred for two knee replacements in November 2019. The first operation was originally scheduled for March 2020, but it didn’t take place until ten months later in January 2021.
Debbie faced another long wait on the NHS for her second knee replacement, so she decided to pay for the operation herself, which is due to happen on 26th October 2021.
Since her battle with osteoarthritis, Debbie said she has gone from being an active person who can “happily walk ten miles” to “struggling to walk 200 yards to the village shop”.
She said: “I know how life-changing this surgery can be. My first knee replacement has been amazing, pain-free now, but the other joint has deteriorated further. To be told I may have to wait another two years for my second surgery, despite being referred for both knees in November 2019, was devastating.
“It wasn’t an easy decision to pay to go private. It will mean being in debt for the next few years, on top of having to pay the new healthcare tax. But the alternative was to put my life on hold indefinitely – years I’ll never get back – and rely on increasing amounts of prescription painkillers to cope.
“Waiting for surgery doesn’t just affect me, it also has an impact on my husband and children because we can’t do the things we enjoy together. I feel angry that there’s no financial help for people in my situation but having the certainty of a date for my surgery and an end in sight to the constant debilitating pain is worth doing whatever it takes.”
Siva Anandaciva, chief analyst at The King’s Fund, said: “The pandemic has pushed NHS waiting lists to record levels and laid bare the deep health inequalities in our country.
“It is not a surprise that waits for NHS care vary across the country but the fact that patients in deprived areas are nearly twice as likely to wait a year or more for planned treatment should be a wake-up call for a government that has committed to levelling up the country, and ring alarm bells for MPs in ‘red wall’ constituencies.
“The Government’s forthcoming plan to tackle the backlog of care must include a strong focus on tackling health inequalities and avoid a one-size-fits-all approach, otherwise there is a real risk that patients from our most deprived communities will continue to wait the longest for the treatment they need.”
An NHS spokesperson said: “While the pandemic inevitably had an impact on non-urgent care, NHS staff made effective use of additional resources – almost halving average waiting times for elective care over the last year.
“Expert clinicians continue to prioritise patients with the greatest clinical need and hospitals should ensure that a point of contact is available to those waiting for treatment, including through Patient Advice and Liaison Services.”
