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The NHS has admitted being been “overwhelmed” during an unprecedented collapse in waiting time standards last month.

Long A&E waits have increased again to the worst levels on record after Theresa May ordered the NHS to consider scrapping the key four-hour target.

Waits for cancer patients to be treated also reached their worst since records began missing seven of the nine key targets.

A review of all waiting time targets has been launched by NHS England as standards have collapsed during a decade of historic underfunding by the Tories.

New targets will mean in future standards will not be able to be measured against historic levels.

(Image: Getty)

One in four patients turning up in major emergency departments waited more than four hours to be admitted, new data for February shows.

There were just 75.7% of patients were seen within the time limit, down from 76.1% the previous month and well below the 95% minimum standard expected to be ditched.

More than 500 patients had to wait more than 12 hours on trolleys for an A&E hospital bed, 41% more than the same month last year.

Waits for vital planned operations such as hip replacement and cataracts have also shot up according to new monthly figures.

Nick Ville, director at the NHS Confederation which represents hospitals and other service providers, said: “These statistics are further proof that, despite treating more patients than ever before, the NHS is being overwhelmed.

(Image: PA)

“Hospitals and other local services are facing huge increases in demand at a time of constrained funding and 100,000 staff vacancies.

“NHS staff are being placed under considerable pressure and everyone knows this cannot go on. We need to find a more sustainable way of providing care to a growing and ageing population.”

The collapse in NHS standards comes despite a mild winter and lower than average levels of flu in the population.

The major cancer target is that 85% of patients should be treated no more than 62 days after being given an urgen referral. This lower than the 95% target in Scotland and Wales.

This dropped again to just 76% of patients being seen within the time limit last month and this has now been breached in England every month for the last five years.

When it was last met in 2014 on average eight of the nine cancer waiting time targets were hit each month. Now only two of the nine targets are being met.

Dr Fran Woodard, director at Macmillan Cancer Support, said: “In the last five years more than 127,000 people have been left waiting too long to start vital treatment throughout that time.

“Behind the numbers are real people who tell us how delays cause real anxiety for them and their loved ones at a time when they are already trying to deal with the many worries cancer is throwing their way.”

In total there were an estimated 4.3 million patients waiting to start non-urgent treatment, up 7% on the previous year.

For operations deemed non-emergency there were 228,000 patients waiting more than six months, which was an increase of 31% on the same time the previous year.

Those waiting more than nine months shot up by 39% up to 37,000.

Jonathan Ashworth,Shadow Health and Social Care Secretary, said: “For hospitals to report the worst ever A&E four hour waits in the same week NHS England announced plans to abandon the target exposes the reality of nine years of austerity, understaffing and mismanagement of our NHS.

“Today’s statistics will do little to allay frontline concerns that targets will be changed not on the basis of clinical consensus, but because of political pressure from Tory ministers.

“Behind each of these statistics is a patient waiting longer in pain and anguish.”

(Image: SIPA USA/PA Images)

Another key target which could be scrapped is that patients should be treated in less than 18 weeks after being referred.

Only 86.7% were seen within 18 weeks, meaning the government’s 92% target has not been met since February 2016.

Last month there were 552,000 waiting more than 18 weeks compared to 441,000 the same month the previous year.

Professor Derek Alderson, president of the Royal College of Surgeons, said of waiting lists for planned treatment: “The backlog of patients waiting to start treatment continues to grow.

“There are now over 100,000 more patients waiting longer than 18 weeks to start treatment when compared with the same time last year.”

Experts expressed shock at the decline in standards.

Deborah Ward, analyst at The King’s Fund, said: “Despite a mild winter, today’s figures reveal a hidden crisis in hospitals up and down the country.”

Miriam Deakin, director at NHS Providers which represents trusts, said: “The resilience and dedication shown by staff to patient care throughout a very sustained period of pressure and demand is extraordinary.

“But there is only so much that trusts can do when resources are already stretched to breaking point.”

A spokesman for NHS England said: “NHS staff across the country have been working incredibly hard throughout winter to provide the best care for patients.

“Despite significant increases in demand, almost a quarter of a million more people have been seen and treated within four hours in A&E this winter compared to last year.”