There have been several reports (all links I had to hand are from last year so not useful). But I suspect it's a very complex picture e.g. behavioural changes amongst public in response to reports about NHS e.g. are people being more reserved or delaying calling an ambulance when they might face hours in the back of that ambulance outside A&E or might they delay and "see if it passes". How many people are not getting their treatment within the 19 weeks (I'm at 21 months and still don't even have a diagnosis and admin/consultant f****-ups mean I have not even had a consultant for the last 7 months and 10 of that 21 months has been waiting for procedures that medics "forgot to request" after confirming they were being requested in writing).slowster wrote: ↑24 Nov 2021, 11:49am It has been well publicised that the NHS is under great strain and many workers are burnt out or close to it, with increasing shortages of staff in some sectors, and that there is a huge backlog of treatments. What I have not seen is any attempt to quantify the impact of the diversion of NHS resources to Covid away from other treatments, especially those which require an ICU bed, on the mortality of those with other conditions, e.g. cancer. There was the odd human interest article in the media over the past two years in which some cancer patients described how treatment was stopped/delayed, which suggested to me that the reduction in levels of care would result in a significant number of deaths, i.e. statistically measurable.
....
Somebody e.g. finding a lump, 1st see GP (my GP Practice has been on "emergency only" for weeks and today I found my own GP is down to working 2 days a week), next wait for seeing consultant, next wait for tests, next wait for consultant to analyse those tests, etc. and perhaps for some the "maybe it's nothing" will be a stronger feeling than in more normal times. Add in that some might still consider attending a hospital as a higher risk of catching Covid (my uninformed opinion is it's probably safer than e.g. a supermarket). How do you quantify all those factors beyond drop in referral numbers (and how much of that is caused by NHS issues e.g. GP appointments and how much patient hesitancy)?
Ian