AN additional 1,000 patients joined the waiting list for routine treatment at the University Hospitals Dorset Trust in August, figures reveal.

The King’s Fund think tank warned the waiting list for planned care in England is continuing to climb towards levels not seen since the waiting times crisis in the 1990s.

NHS England figures show 49,891 patients were waiting for non-urgent consultant-led care at University Hospitals Dorset NHS Foundation Trust at the end of August – 3 per cent more than 48,672 the month before.

The figure was also an increase of 21 per cent on the 41,160 on the waiting list in August last year.

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Across England, the number of people waiting for treatment rose by 109,000 from 5.6 million in July to 5.7 million in August – the highest number since records began in August 2007.

Siva Anandaciva, chief analyst at The King’s Fund, said the upcoming Spending Review must address the pile-up of maintenance issues with NHS buildings and staffing challenges within the service, or “risk undermining efforts to reduce the waiting list backlog”.

He said: “The Government has announced significant, additional funding to support NHS services, but hasn’t yet delivered on promises to increase capital investment in buildings and equipment, or provided the funding required to train and develop the staff needed to address chronic workforce shortages."

NHS rules state that patients referred for non-urgent consultant-led elective care should start treatment within 18 weeks.

Mark Mould, UHD’s chief operating officer said: “The pandemic has created challenges for everyone and the NHS is no different.

“University Hospitals Dorset is working hard to reduce waiting times as soon as possible. A huge part of our work centres around creating a new outpatients department in Beales in Poole Dolphin Centre and we’re incredibly excited to see this currently taking shape (see here for more information).

“Our patients and the public can help as well. We are encouraging patients to let us know as soon as possible if they are unable to attend their appointments. It’s difficult for us to fill a slot if we are told a patient can’t make an appointment on the day itself so the earlier we have this information the higher the chance that we can fill the slot, thus reducing the wait times. If patients don’t turn up to their appointments it means the waiting lists grows further and reducing the ‘did not attend’ figures would have a positive impact on the wait times.”