More support needed for those waiting for operations say MP's

MP's are calling for more support for those who've been forced to wait months for routine surgery due to delays caused by the pandemic.

The latest data from the NHS shows 4,700,000 people are currently waiting for elective surgery. 387, 885 of those have been waiting more than a year so far for their operations.

Pressures on the NHS due to the pandemic have pushed waiting times for these types of operations to their highest levels ever recorded.

Now there are concerns that many thousands of people on these lists could be suffering from painful ailments and facing financial troubles due to the delays.

Janette Moran from Standish has been waiting thirteen months for an operation to fix her knee saying it has "completely gone".

The injury has left her out of work for over a year and fears she won't be able to return for at least another seven months.

"I was told in December it's going to be at least probably another 12 months before I'm going to get surgery."

"I'm terrified because obviously, it has impacted on my job. I've been off work for over a year now and I just don't know when I'm going to get back to work or if I've got a job at the end of it."

"They can't promise me a date, they can't give me that because I know there are a lot more people out there who are in the same position as me."

"I'm in continual pain and the pain relief I've been on since last summer, at the moment nothing is touching it because basically my knee's gone, the ligament, everything's gone."

"It's only the surgery now that's going to help relieve this pain."

"Last March, I was hoping that I was going to get the operation and be back at work before Christmas and then of course the pandemic got worse and everything was cancelled."

"I didn't think I'd still be here, 13 months later."

MP's have been debating the issue in the Commons this afternoon after it was raised by Bootle MP Peter Dowd.

He said: "It impacts upon their families, their social life as well and their employment."

"People lose their jobs because they can't go to work because of the need for an operation."

"There are a much wider range of effects than most of us could imagine."

"If you count the people who could need an intervention but haven't been able to go to their GPs, that figure by 2024, according to people like the Royal College of Physicians and the Health Foundation, could be up to 9 million people on the NHS waiting list."

He's urging the government to think about creative ways it could support people like Janette who've been put out of work...

"It's almost like a furlough type system potentially. There has to be an imaginative way forward for support for people and things like Universal Credit just isn't sufficient."

"There has to be a rethink on that, given that there are so many people potentially affected by this problem."

Last week in response to the data the Priminister pledged that the government would "give the NHS all the funding that it needs... to beat the backlog."

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