The number of patients who had NHS operations cancelled at the last minute is the highest in almost 25 years, new figures show.

The Royal College of Surgeons said the situation had become “unacceptable,” with too many people left to suffer in pain or while their condition deteriorated.

The NHS figures show 25,475 operations cancelled on the day they were due to happen between January and March of this year. The quarterly figure is the highest since quarterly records began in 1994.

The last-minute cancellations happened despite advice from NHS officials to cancel thousands more operations for the month of January, as services came under increasing pressure.

And targets to treat 92 per cent of patients within 18 weeks have now been missed for more than two years, the NHS statistics show.

In March, just 87.2 per cent of patients were seen within 18 weeks, leaving more than 360,000 patients facing longer waits.