Far fewer people are having surgery or cancer treatment because Covid-19 has disrupted NHS services so dramatically, and those who do are facing the longest waits on record. NHS figures reveal huge falls in the number of patients who have been going into hospital for a range of vital care in England since the pandemic began in March, prompting fears that their health will have worsened because diseases and conditions went untreated. Patients have been unable to access a wide range of normal care since non-Covid-19 services were suspended in hospitals in March so the NHS could focus on treating the disease. Many patients were also afraid to go into hospital in case they became infected, which contributed to a fall in treatment volumes. In May only 560,240 people received some form of treatment in hospital, down 60% on the 1.4 million who did so at the same time last year. The number of operations performed by hospitals also dropped 82%, from 295,881 to just 54,550, in May compared with the same period in 2019. In May, 16,678 people underwent urgent cancer treatment within a month of their GP referring them, the lowest number since records began in 2009 and down 37% from the 26,326 patients who had their first treatment in May 2019. The NHS also treated the smallest proportion of patients ever within a month, managing 93.9% against a target of 96%. It was a similar picture with people due to have urgent cancer treatment within two months. In May just 8,564 did so, which was 39% fewer than the 13,998 who did so a year earlier. Hospitals’ performance against the waiting-time standard also plunged to its lowest ever level. They are meant to treat 85% of patients within two months but only treated 69.9% in May. Prof Neil Mortensen, the president of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, said: “We have been concerned since the start of this pandemic that suspending elective surgery for a period of months placed a time bomb under what was already a crisis in NHS waiting times. That time bomb has now detonated.” The NHS must not become “simply a Covid-only service” again if there is a second spike in infections, he added. Experts warned that, with hospitals still functioning at well below normal capacity, it would be a long time before waiting times returned to pre-pandemic levels. “We will need political and public patience. This will have to be a time of realistic expectations as the service struggles to its feet with the threat of the virus still very much a part of daily life across frontline services”, said Dr Layla McCay, a spokeswoman for the NHS Confederation, which represents NHS care providers. The figures also showed that the number of people waiting six weeks or more in May for a diagnostic test such, as a CT or MRI scan, was 571,459 – the highest number on record. An NHS spokesperson said that the overall number of people on the waiting list for planned care had fallen by more than 500,000 since the pandemic struck and that growing numbers of services were reopening. GPs were now referring more patients for an urgent check-up, they added.