MORE than 19,000 patients were waiting for routing treatment at Barnsley Hospital in October, new figures have revealed.
The data from NHS Digital shows that 19,620 people were waiting for non-urgent elective operations or treatment at Barnsley Hospital NHS Foundation Trust at the end of October - up from 19,281 in September, and 11,614 in October 2021.
Of those, 85 had been waiting for longer than a year.
The median waiting time from referral at an NHS Trust to treatment at Barnsley Hospital was eight weeks at the end of October - down from nine weeks in September.
Nationally, seven million people were waiting to start treatment at the end of October.
The figures come as the King’s Fund warns the NHS is ‘bursting at the seams’, as winter pressures mount up.
Danielle Jefferies, from the King’s Fund, said: “The latest figures show an NHS bursting at the seams as services head into winter struggling to meet sharply rising demand while keeping patients safe.
“It is easy to become numb to dire NHS performance figures, but the health service really is facing the toughest pressures since modern records began.”
Separate figures show 1.5 million patients in England were waiting for a key diagnostic test in October - a fall from 1.6 million in September.
At Barnsley Hospital, 2,887 patients were waiting for one of nine standard tests, such as an MRI scan, non-obstetric ultrasound or gastroscopy at this time.
Of them, 325 - 11.1 per cent - had been waiting for at least six weeks.
Dr Susan Crossland, immediate past president of the Society for Acute Medicine - a representative body for hospital staff - said of the latest NHS performance data that ‘such shocking levels of performance are now commonplace’ and a sign of ‘just how far the NHS has fallen’.
“Standards are at all-time lows for both patients and staff, and it is demoralising for colleagues across the country and the UK as a whole who are working tirelessly against the tide to deliver a reasonable quality of care,” Dr Crossland added.
Other figures from NHS England show that of 71 patients urgently referred by the NHS who were treated at Barnsley Hospital in October, 41 were receiving cancer treatment within two months of their referral.
A month previously 34 were treated within 62 days.
In October 2021, 27 patients were treated within this period, out of 41 that were referred.
Professor Julian Redhead, national clinical director for urgent and emergency care for NHS England, said the service is facing a ‘perfect storm’.
“Despite the ongoing pressures on services which are exacerbated by flu hospitalisations, issues in social care meaning we cannot discharge patients who are ready, and record numbers needing A and E, staff have powered through to bring down some of our longest waits for care,” he said.
