Hospitals are cancelling the largest number of operations for 10 years, according to new official figures, prompting warnings that the NHS is under “extreme pressure”.

A total of 20,464 planned surgeries were cancelled at the last minute for non-clinical reasons in January, February and March in England.

That was the most since the first three months of 2005, when 21,500 surgeries had to be called off. And it was up from the 17,868 cancellations seen in the same quarter of 2014: a rise of almost 15%.



The figures published on Friday led to warnings that patients affected suffered anxiety or distress as a result.



Call-offs happen because beds set aside for patients having elective – or planned – surgery are needed for other cases, often ones that have recently come in as emergencies. They can also be the result of nurses and doctors being needed elsewhere in the hospital.



Plymouth Hospitals NHS trust cancelled 648 operations – the most of any trust – and Hull and East Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust was second-worst, with 526 cancellations. A few trusts cancelled none.



Patients whose surgery is cancelled at the last minute are meant to have their rearranged operation within 28 days. But the latest NHS England figures show that more and more people are having to wait longer than that.



Almost one in 10 such patients in the first quarter of this year – 1,787 (8.7%) in all – did not then receive their treatment within the supposed maximum time. That was the highest figure since January-March 2006, when 1,959 had to wait longer than 28 days.



“Care is in effect being rationed. The NHS is being forced to choose between which patients to treat now and which patients must wait longer for treatment”, said Dr Mark Porter, the head of the British Medical Association.



Porter said: “Behind each cancelled operation is an anxious patient left waiting longer for treatment, with some patients experiencing more than one cancellation. These figures lay bare the extreme pressure across the system.”



Dr Peter Carter, general secretary of the Royal College of Nursing, said: “Operations are critical in restoring patients to health and it is extremely concerning that patients are having to wait this long for treatment. These figures reflect the perilous state of affairs in overstretched acute services.”



Budget cuts had led to serious understaffing across the NHS, so it was no surprise that cancelled operations were reaching such heights, he added.



Andrew Gwynne, Labour’s health spokesman, said government policies had left hospitals unable to cope with a surge in demand for care.



“These figures are another sign of how the NHS has gone downhill. David Cameron … caused this crisis by making it harder to see a GP and taking social care support away from hundreds of thousands of people.”



NHS England insisted that cancellations had “remained low in the context of the millions of operations performed in the NHS each year, and the unprecedented level of demand we have seen across the whole health system this winter.”



The latest weekly A&E performance statistics, also published on Friday, confirm that the NHS is struggling to deal with patients as quickly as it should.



A&E units in England have failed to treat and admit, discharge or transfer 95% of arrivals within four hours for the 32nd week in a row. The target has now been breached continuously since the end of last September.



In the week ending 10 May, 93.4% of those turning up were seen on time.



A total of 6,600 patients had to wait for more than four hours before they were admitted, up from 5,400 the week before.



NHS England said: “These latest figures show our frontline staff continue to deliver an excellent service while coming under sustained pressure.”



The Department of Health said that the number of cancelled operations were “very low” and that its plans to transform how care is delivered would ultimately reduce pressure on hospitals.

“The NHS is busier than ever, which is why we have invested an extra £2bn this year to reduce pressure. But we also need to tackle the underlying challenges facing the NHS so we will join up care for patients, improve access through seven-day services and do more to prevent illness in the first place,” a spokesman said.