the royal college of surgeons says the
record number of patients waiting for
hospital treatment in england
shows the calamitous impact of kovid 19
on the nhs
almost four and a half million people in
england were on lists at the end of
november before this latest lockdown
many of them for routine operations like
hip replacements
but some cancer patients are also now
having to wait
it comes as more than 1200 deaths were
reported
in the last 24 hours here's our health
editor hugh pim
the consequences of coronavirus are
becoming clearer
queen elizabeth hospital in birmingham
temporarily halted its kidney
transplantation program
because of the surge in covid patient
numbers other hospitals
are also postponing non-covered work
paul and his wife diane are both living
with cancer
her treatment is going well but he needs
specialist radiation therapy
for a rare tumor in his chest i used to
run a lot but now
and i get out of breath just going up
the stairs he was set to have it last
week
but was told because of covered pressure
at the hospital it had been cancelled
that was devastated i couldn't speak for
10 seconds when they told me on the
phone
um you know it's not just everything for
me it's my family
and friends i know you know they've been
rooting me for the last 12 months
you know i've still got this tube and
i've had it for at least 12 months
it's frightening it's fine cancer
charities say that sort of cancellation
isn't happening yet at most hospitals
but they're worried it could do
it was a huge effort made to restore
cancer services
pre-plan to pre-pandemic levels and
massive efforts gone into that
but we are concerned now in this
lockdown
that there's going to be increased
pressure on
services and we fear more treatments
will be cancelled
for routine hospital treatment such as
hip and knee replacements
in england in november more than 192 000
were waiting
to give a sense of scale that's about
three times the capacity of london
stadium
home of west ham and where the olympics
were staged
by contrast in february just before the
pandemic the figure was only about 1
600 that's below the capacity of
non-league margate football club stadium
nhs england said that unlike the first
wave millions of people were being
treated in hospitals for non-coveted
health problems
government sources said waiting lists
were still a lot lower
than some earlier predictions but
there's no
doubting the covered pressure on the
front line including here at york
hospital
i'm worried that we're getting very
close to
the kind of scenarios that we're already
seeing down in
london where hospitals have breached the
capacity
even for their surge capacity for covid
the hope is that widespread vaccination
will reduce patient numbers in hospitals
and from today jabs are being delivered
in some pharmacies in england
adding to gp hubs and other sites
so how's the vaccine rollout in england
been going well up until
last sunday around 46 of the 80 and over
age group in the northeastern yorkshire
had had their first dose
in the northwest it was 38 in other
regions
a little bit below that in london it was
closer to 30 percent
and in the east of england it was a bit
lower than that
as a percentage of the whole population
northern ireland is ahead of the rest of
the uk
with more than five percent having jabs
wales has the lowest so far
at about three and a half but these are
early days
hupim bbc news