Patients who are waiting for planned trauma and orthopaedics and ear, nose and throat services are facing the longest waiting lists in the NHS system, according to a report by the Nuffield Trust and Health Foundation.
As of May 2024, these two specialisms made up almost one fifth of the total waiting list size (11.0% and 8.6% respectively) for planned hospital care. They are waiting an average of 15.4 and 17.6 weeks respectively.
It said trauma and orthopaedics services are more likely to treat people requiring overnight admission and longer lengths of stay in hospital than other specialities, which limits their capacity to treat patients.
However, it added that the pandemic may have also negatively affected access to these services more than others, as there were ‘greater relative drops’ in the number of admitted patients compared to non-admitted patients.
Oral surgery has the longest median waiting times, with 17.7 weeks, however it is only the thirteenth largest waiting list overall.
The report also highlighted that respiratory medicine and gynaecology services had the largest increases in waiting list sizes over the past 10 years.
Respiratory services, which currently has one of the smaller waiting lists compared to other specialisms, had a 263% increase between May 2014 and May 2024. Gynaecology had the second largest increase, with 223% uplift over the same period.
The report said: ‘For respiratory medicine, this might be a consequence of increasing emergency care needs diverting resources away from planned care as a result of direct Covid-19 infections or exacerbations of respiratory diseases due to changes in the occurrence of respiratory viruses post pandemic, such as respiratory syncytial virus (RSV).
‘In addition, with the emergence of long Covid, the respiratory medicine workforce are caring for a whole new group of patients suffering long-term symptoms following a Covid-19 infection.’
Meanwhile one in 20 waits for gynaecology services were more than 52 weeks, which is the third largest number across the services.
‘The 2022 Elective Recovery Plan for the NHS focused on prioritisation based on clinical need and to reduce long waits over 65 weeks. This has been criticised as not effectively prioritising these services and may have resulted in waits for gynaecological services not improving as much as orthopaedic services which had more of the very longest waiters,’ the report said.
However, it added that waiting lists have increased across all specialities apart from general internal medicine and mental health services.
It comes after health secretary Wes Streeting said the government plans to get hospitals running like a ‘Formula 1 pit stop’ to deliver up to four times more operations than normal.
The report also looked at waits for emergency services, with patients with psycho-social or behavioural problems waiting longer than other patients, with an average of 11 hours and 59 minutes for those who were admitted and seven hours 19 minutes if not admitted.
It also looked at the demographics of patients waiting longer in A&E and found that more people from deprived areas attend A&E but waiting times are similar across all levels of deprivation.
However, children from Black, Asian and mixed ethnicities were seen to wait longer than white children.
The report said: ‘When we look at the youngest age group (those aged 19 and under), patients of Black ethnicities waited longer – on average three hours and 41 minutes – compared to White children and young people, who waited approximately three hours and 20 minutes on average.
‘Further analysis by ten-year age bands revealed longer waits for Black patients up until the age of 40. Amongst patients who were admitted, Black people of all ages were found to wait longer than White people.’
It follows a separate report from The Health Foundation published last week which found that each year around 300,000 people aged 16-64 leave the workforce after reporting a work-limiting health condition.
