Elective care: how has COVID-19 affected the waiting list? (27 September 2021)

Summary

While the NHS delivered a remarkable amount of elective treatment during the pandemic, the pressure of caring for large numbers of patients seriously unwell with COVID-19 has led to the waiting list for elective care reaching the highest level since current records began.

This analysis from The Health Foundation looks in detail at the impact of the pandemic on the waiting list for elective care in England. It highlights that:

• 6 million fewer people completed elective care pathways between January 2020 and July 2021 than would have been expected based on pre-pandemic numbers
• the backlog of elective care is not evenly distributed across England
• patients living in socioeconomically deprived areas faced more disruption and delays than those in England’s least deprived areas.

It also looks at the difficulty in predicting how long the backlog will take to clear and how much it will cost. One unknown factor that complicates this task is 'missing' patients - those who did not or could not seek care during the pandemic. These patients may present at a healthcare setting requiring more urgent, intensive treatment as a result of missing out on earlier intervention.