East Sussex Healthcare: all the key numbers for the NHS Trust in March

Embargoed to 0001 Monday January 24 File photo dated 03/10/14 of an NHS hospital ward. Health unions are calling for an inflation-busting pay rise to tackle the NHS staffing crisis and increasing waiting times for treatment. Issue date: Monday January 24, 2022.

Tens of thousands of patients were waiting for routine treatment at East Sussex Healthcare in March, figures show.

The Society for Acute Medicine said the latest data shows pressure on the NHS nationally is "unsustainable" and needs urgent action from the Government.

NHS England figures show 39,975 patients were waiting for non-urgent elective operations or treatment at East Sussex Healthcare NHS Trust at the end of March – up from 38,381 in February, and 30,887 in March 2021.

Of those, 131 had been waiting for longer than a year.

The median waiting time from referral at an NHS Trust to treatment at East Sussex Healthcare was 11 weeks at the end of March – down from 12 weeks in February.

Nationally, 6.4 million people were waiting to start treatment at the end of March – the highest number since records began in 2007.

But the number of people waiting more than two years has dropped for the second month in a row.

Separate NHS England figures show that a record 24,138 people had to wait more than 12 hours in A&E departments in England in April, from a decision to admit to actually being admitted.

Siva Anandaciva, chief analyst at The King’s Fund think tank, said that unless the Government “grasp the nettle” on health and social care staffing shortages, patients will be left waiting in “discomfort, pain and deteriorating health”.

He added: “The top priority for the NHS is to tackle the longest waits, so it is some comfort to see the number of people waiting over two years for planned care starting to come down.

“This week’s Queen’s Speech identified reducing the backlog of care as one of the Government’s top three priorities.