NHS waiting lists have reached record highs this year. In June, 7.6million people in England were waiting to start treatment. Almost 400,000 people have been waiting for over a year. Much of this backlog can be traced back to the lockdowns in 2020 and 2021, when patients suffering from anything other than Covid were warned to stay away from hospitals. This misguided attempt to ‘protect the NHS’ left illnesses undiagnosed and led to severe delays in treatment. Most serious of all has been the disruption to cancer care, which some experts now warn could be as deadly as the pandemic itself.
