Children face a post code lottery of NHS care with hundreds waiting over a year for treatment in some parts of the country.
Doctors warn the pandemic has had a ‘very detrimental effect’ on kids as paediatric staff were redeployed to treat adults with Covid.
It means many young patients had their operations and diagnostic appointments cancelled and are now at risk of deteriorating further.
There are 267,256 under-16s on waiting lists in England, analysis of official figures reveals for the first time.
But 72,458 of these have been waiting longer than the 18 weeks target and 13,854 have been waiting for more than a year.
Shockingly, paediatric waiting lists in some areas are more than 20-times bigger than others, with kids in the most deprived areas more likely to face delays.
Shockingly, paediatric waiting lists in some areas are more than 20 times bigger than others, with children in the most deprived areas worst hit
NHS Oxfordshire Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) is the best performing area with 173.6 children per 100,000 on a waiting list.
However, NHS Sheffield CCG has 24-times as many children waiting, with a rate of 4,134.1 per 100,000 – equal to 5,153 patients.
NHS Manchester CCG has the highest rate of children waiting over a year, at 514.8 per 100,000, compared with just 2.0 per 100,000 in Liverpool.
Nine areas have fewer than ten children waiting more than a year for treatment, with Southport, West Lancashire, Wirral, St Helen’s and Liverpool having fewer than three.
But others areas have hundreds waiting this long, with a staggering 1,756 on the list for more than 52 weeks in North East London alone.
Dr Camilla Kingdon, President of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, said: ‘These new figures reflect our concerns regarding the huge waiting lists for children and young people.
‘The marked geographical variation emphasises again why tackling health inequalities is so crucial and if the government is serious about its “levelling up” agenda, this data lends weight to why this needs to be a priority.
Revealed: The areas with the longest waits for children
NHS Sheffield CCG
Number waiting per 100k population: 4,134.1
Absolute number waiting: 5,153
NHS Manchester CCG
Number waiting per 100k population: 4,004.3
Absolute number waiting: 5,180
NHS Salford CCG
Number waiting per 100k population: 3,986.1
Absolute number waiting: 2,401
NHS Brighton and Hove CCG
Number waiting per 100k population: 3,566.8
Absolute number waiting: 1,918
NHS Wigan Borough CCG
Number waiting per 100k population: 3,552.4
Absolute number waiting: 2,576
NHS Leicester City CCG
Number waiting per 100k population: 3,378.7
Absolute number waiting: 2,995
NHS Heywood, Middleton and Rochdale CCG
Number waiting per 100k population: 3,285.4
Absolute number waiting: 1,837
NHS Birmingham and Solihull CCG
Number waiting per 100k population: 3,255.3
Absolute number waiting: 9,884
NHS Bury CCG
Number waiting per 100k population: 3,212.4
Absolute number waiting: 1,457
NHS Black Country and West Birmingham CCG
Number waiting per 100k population: 3,019.9
Absolute number waiting: 10,449
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‘Children’s access to timely care should not be a matter of geography.
‘Throughout the pandemic, paediatric staffing and resources have frequently been diverted to adult services.
‘This was understandable because children and young people are rarely made seriously ill by the virus.
‘But the indirect effects of the pandemic have had a very detrimental effect on the young, not only in cancelled operations and clinic appointments, but in the effect of rising demand on many services for children and adolescents.
‘We’re seeing a worrying increase in eating disorders, severe anxiety and deliberate self-harm but the waiting lists for treatment for these children can be months, putting enormous pressure on them and their families.’
The NHS only recently started publishing data for paediatrics, which includes all patients from birth to the age of 16.
The first figures, for April, showed 245,699 were on a waiting list. This grew by 5 per cent in May and a further 4 per cent in June, the most recent month available.
But the number of children waiting a year or more fell by 11 per cent from May to June.
Dr Kingdon said: ‘Paediatricians have been working extremely hard to address the backlog, as can be seen in the fall in the numbers of children waiting for over a year.
‘But many young people urgently need diagnosis and treatment for conditions which will be harder to treat the longer they have to wait.
‘Tackling this crisis is dependent on long-term investment in children’s services and joined-up working across all agencies and national and local government.’
Dr Jonathan Pearson-Stuttard, from LCP Health Analytics, which analysed the NHS figures, said: ‘The data starkly shows the areas in England that urgently need most help to reduce their paediatric waiting lists and highlights worrying levels of disparity in access to treatments for children.
‘The difference between the best and worst performing areas is vast, and the chasm will only grow unless resources are targeted to areas with the highest unmet healthcare need.
‘More detailed data would provide further clarity on which groups of children are most likely to have unmet need, including by treatment type, age, gender, ethnicity and deprivation.
‘The Government’s levelling-up agenda must target issues such as this to avoid another legacy of Covid-19 being a widening of inequalities in children’s health which could ultimately lead to future inequalities, impacting their opportunities to learn and gain employment in years to come.’
An NHS England spokesperson said: ‘Caring for more than 420,000 Covid-19 patients requiring hospital treatment has had an inevitable impact on the health service’s ability to deliver other care for less urgent conditions, but NHS services have continued to be available for patients who needed them.
‘NHS staff have been working flat out to make the best use of the additional funds the government has made available, such as setting up elective accelerator sites including at five specialist children’s hospitals, with the number of routine treatments and operations increasing and the health service well ahead of target in recovering elective care.’
The Department of Health said: ‘We are providing a record amount of funding to the NHS, with an extra £29billion this year alone to support health and care services, including £1billion to help tackle the backlog that has built up during the pandemic.
‘The new Office for Health Promotion, launching later this year, will spearhead national efforts to level up the health of the nation and close the gap on disparities.’
The total NHS England waiting list, including adults, now stands at a record 5.5million.
It is expected to hit as high as 14million next year as people who delayed or were unable to seek care during the pandemic come forward.
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