NHS patients waiting more than a year to get into hospital shoots up by 250 per cent in one year

THE number of patients waiting for more than a year to be admitted for hospital care has hit its highest level in almost a decade.

The new data analysis comes as health leaders warned that the number of patients who wait for more than a year for hospital care could increase.

NHS Improvement said that it expects the number to grow as hospitals work to prioritise those who have been waiting the longest.

During the first four months of the 2017/18 financial year, 4,087 patients who were admitted to hospitals in England for treatment had waited for more than 52 weeks since their referral.

The Health Service Journal (HSJ) analysed data for the first four months of each financial year from 2008/9 to compare the number of people admitted for treatment after a year of waiting.

The NHS England "referral to treatment time" (RTT) figures - for non-emergency hospital care where a patient needed admitting for treatment - show that the number of patients enduring long waits reduced drastically from 2008/9, when 15,096 waited more than a year for care.

This year's figures are at the highest level since then.

An increase in demand for emergency care as well as greater numbers of people being referred for elective care could be contributing factors, officials said.

NHS Improvement said that the figures showed the "sustained pressures" facing the health service.

Commenting on the figures, a spokeswoman for NHS Improvement said: "We know that patients are concerned about waiting times and we are working hard to support trusts and foundation trusts to reduce them.

"Performance against the 92% RTT target and the increase in the number of patients being treated after waiting for 52 weeks shows the sustained pressures facing the NHS, with ever increasing emergency demand as well as greater numbers of people being referred for elective services.

"We are working with trusts to help them find additional capacity and to work more efficiently so that patients receive the treatment they need as quickly as possible.

"Over the coming year, we would expect to see an increase in the number of patients treated after 52 weeks as trusts do more to treat the patients that have been waiting the longest."