Tens of thousands of patients were waiting for routine treatment at the North Cumbria Integrated Care Trust in September, figures show.

The King's Fund, a healthcare think tank, said NHS services are already in crisis and warned new Prime Minister Rishi Sunak that the situation is likely to worsen if budgets are cut.

NHS England figures show 36,464 patients were waiting for non-urgent elective operations or treatment at North Cumbria Integrated Care NHS Foundation Trust at the end of September – up slightly from 36,378 in August, and 32,805 in September 2021.

Of those, 809 (2%) had been waiting for longer than a year.

A spokesperson from North Cumbria Integrated Care said: "There are no patients waiting over 104 weeks for treatment and we are now focusing on making sure we have no patients waiting over 78 weeks as well as continuing to reduce the number of people waiting over 52 weeks by March 2023. 

"NCIC is ahead of our plan with 37 patients currently waiting over 78 weeks against a target of 69. At the start of October, there were 857 patients waiting over 52 weeks which is a 65% reduction since March 2021.

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"Diagnostic performance has improved significantly over the past year with the waiting list having reduced by over 6,500 from its peak in October 2021. Demand for diagnostics continues to grow therefore the only way to fully address waiting times is to expand our capacity.

"We are currently running mobile scanners at our main hospital sites and we were delighted to be granted the £15m funding to build a Community Diagnostic Centre in Workington with work starting in March 2023.

"One of the ways we will continue to make positive progress against our recovery plans is to alleviate the pressure being felt across our services.

"This includes doing all we can to ease congestion in our A&E departments; funding additional beds over the winter period; making sure our discharge procedures are effective seven days a week and recruiting additional home care practitioners to help support patients in their own homes after they have been discharged from hospital."

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