Almost 270,000 patients waiting for elective treatments in region - and number is going up

NHS England data showed 268,967 people across the Black Country and Staffordshire were waiting for non-urgent elective operations or treatment.

Of that number a total of 9,653 patients had been waiting over a year, whilst the overall number was higher than the 205,018 recorded in May last year.

It has led to The Society for Acute Medicine branding the delays as "unacceptable" as they warned it must not seen as the "new normal" nationally.

Dr Tim Cooksley, president of the Society for Acute Medicine, said: “The number of patients waiting for prolonged periods for urgent care remains unacceptable and must not be seen as the new normal.

“Patients are being stuck for extortionately long periods in emergency departments and acute medical units which results in worse patient outcomes."

He said the current heatwave and a resurgence of Covid-19 cases have also increased delays, while the NHS is also battling high staff absence levels, burn out and low morale among staff.

He added: “Urgent plans are required for both short-term and long-term strategies to tackle the workforce and capacity challenges and must be a key priority for whoever the next person to occupy number 10 is.”

At the Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust, which runs New Cross Hospital, the number of people waiting for non-urgent elective operations or treatment stood at 63,574 – up from 48,278 the year before.

Meanwhile at the Dudley Group NHS Foundation Trust, which runs Russells Hall Hospital, the figure was 37,299 and up from 24,803 the year before. The Walsall Healthcare NHS Trust, which runs Walsall Manor Hospital, recorded 31,216 patients – up from 21,960 the year before.

Elsewhere at the Sandwell and West Birmingham NHS Trust, which runs Sandwell General Hospital and City Hospital in Birmingham, the figure was 61,007 and up from 48,475.

And in Staffordshire, at the University of North Midlands NHS Trust which runs Stafford's County Hospital and Royal Stoke University Hospital, the figure was 75,871 – up from 61,502 in 2021.

Dr Sonya Babu-Narayan, associate medical director and consultant cardiologist at the British Heart Foundation, said: “People will needlessly die or live with disability as a result of dangerous delays in getting time-sensitive heart treatment.

“NHS staff can’t do more than they are doing already, yet cardiovascular disease kills one in four in this country, and it’s certainly not going away."

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesman said: “Recognising the pressure NHS staff are under, we have provided a £150 million injection to help ambulance services, with the number of ambulance and support staff increasing by almost 40% since February 2010.

“We are making good progress on cutting longest waiting times and our community diagnostic centres are delivering over a million tests, checks and scans to help beat the Covid backlog.”