Across England, around 6.1 million people are waiting for hospital treatment, including more than 23,000 waiting for more than two years. For Jo Goulding, who has been living with rheumatoid arthritis since the age of seven, waiting for surgery left her in “racing” chronic pain and “relying on painkillers” to cope. The 49-year-old was on the list for two elbow replacements from 2018, one shoulder replacement from 2019 and only did a hip replacement, which she expected from 2020, in March. Image: Joe Goulding waited almost four years for surgery Due to the length of the wait, when she was finally seen she needed more extensive surgery because the artificial hip had caused problems in her pelvis. “The pain ate me from the inside out, nothing drove the pain away and the limitations in my life were soul-destroying,” explained the mother of two. “I do not know how I did it in the last two years. The most disturbing thing is that not only my life, but also the lives of my family, have been affected.” “My children are only small, nine and 10, and I found my daughter crying the other day because she had seen me cringe in pain, knowing she could do nothing to help me,” the civil engineer told the agency. PA news. She said that living with chronic pain “sucks your life”, adding that she had to mortgage again and adjust her house to cope. Ms Goulding believes that the long-awaited patients are “lost” in the numbers and the NHS is “beyond the limit”. Use the Chrome browser for a more accessible video player 3:49 The race for the hospital waiting time in December Read more: Postcode Search for NHS Tracking – See Your Local Trust Performance Dozens have been waiting for more than three years for hospital treatment It comes as data obtained by the PA shows that dozens of people are waiting at least three years for hospital treatment in England due to a “shocking” NHS pending. At least nine wait at least four years for treatment. One patient, whose details have been kept anonymous, waited almost six years for treatment. Other trusts with seemingly long waiters in late January, according to FOI data provided by individual trusts, included a patient who waited seven and a half years (390 weeks) at the Mid and South Essex NHS Trust for gastroenterological care. A quarter of the longest-serving waiters in the 69 data providers are waiting for trauma and orthopedic care – which covers hip and knee replacements. Four of the longest-lived waitresses waited for gynecological services and six waited for urological care. Follow the Daily Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Spreaker Read more: Waiting times for NHS cancer treatment in record – how bad are they and why? NHS leaders say they are doing “everything they can” to dig up the backlog, but efforts have been hampered by pressures on the emergency care system, COVID cases and high absenteeism rates, in addition to severe labor shortages. . The latest official figures from NHS England show that a total of 23,778 people waited more than two years to begin routine hospital care at the end of January – about nine times the 2,608 people who waited more than two years in April 2021. Professor Neil Mortensen, president of the Royal College of Surgeons in England, described the waiting time as “shocking” and warned that it could “cause real emotional and physical discomfort”. An NHS spokesman said: “NHS staff are working tirelessly to clear up the delays that have inevitably accumulated throughout the pandemic with local teams using innovative approaches to reduce waiting, such as one-stop shops and Super Saturdays. “while we continue to see busy emergency services and a large number of COVID patients.”
