The number of people waiting to receive hospital treatment in England has reached a record high as a result of Covid and lockdowns. Sky News has the story.
Some 4.59 million people were waiting to begin treatment at the end of January, according to NHS England.
It is the highest since records began in August 2007.
The number waiting more than a year was 304,044 in January – the highest for any month since January 2008.
In comparison, the number in January 2020 was just 1,643.
With lockdown in force and many hospitals dealing with record numbers of Covid patients, January also saw a 54% drop in people admitted for routine treatment.
Some 139,378 patients were admitted, compared with 304,888 the same time last year.
More people were receiving pre-planned and emergency care in January 2021 than in April 2020, but the figures still leave much to be desired.
Despite battling the January peak – when more than 100,000 people needed Covid hospital treatment – NHS England said staff still managed to care for 1.3 million people without the virus.
That’s a significant rise on the 847,000 treated during the peak of the first wave in April 2020.
Around 400,000 more people also got pre-planned care and 70,000 emergency care in January compared with April.
Hospitals are now in a much better position to start working through the backlog as the Covid strain has eased significantly since January.
Perhaps more attention should be paid to Professor Karol Sikora’s suggestion that “just one of these endless press conferences [by the Government should] be dedicated to non-Covid related illnesses“.
Worth reading in full.
Stop Press: The NHS performed 40% fewer heart operations as Britain entered lockdown this January.
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Record NHS waiting lists. Yet the health care professionals who appear on the television screens day in and day out routinely deny that the NHS was ever transformed into a virtual Covid 19 service. and, to add insult to injury, blame the public for all their lack of treatments.
I think one important point is missed in all this reporting about the NHS and state of health in general. The Government and Big Pharma work hand in glove. The way the health industry is regulated means that Big Pharma regulates itself, and the bodies through which it does that are officially part of the Government. Investment Banks payroll Big Pharma through their investments, the same bankers sit on the regulatory bodies. Big Tech is used by all three to control data etc and the MSM , whose giggest income stream is from Big Pharma advertising, is used for PR and psyop. It is in none of these ‘players’ interests for anyone to actually be completely well, fit or healthy. Trillions of dollars are made by ensuring there is a continuing supply of people to be drugged, scanned, irradiated, operated on etc etc. None of them want a ‘cure’ for cancer for instance; and anything generic that appears to reduce the threat of covid is subject to overpowering contempt. Having a large waiting list for patient treatment is viewed as a POSITIVE outcome when looked at through this prism. No-one is disappointed, the more that get seriously ill as a… Read more »
Yes our lives are increasingly governed by Big Tech and Big Pharma (and now that we have a “swamp dweller” back in the White House, I fully expect there will be a war in the middle East to satisfy the desires of Big Defense).
It’s ironic that there was a time when at least some politicians and some parts of the media would man the barricades on behalf of ordinary working people against big corporations, but now they have all been bought and paid for by those same corporations.
We really are on our own now.