Gynaecology waits soar by 60% during pandemic

Lucy says her pain has been close to unbearable

Gynaecology waiting lists in England have risen by 60% during the pandemic - more sharply than any other specialty.

Across the UK, more than 570,000 women are waiting for help.

The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG) said patients were "consistently deprioritised and overlooked".

NHS England says hospitals are making progress on dealing with the Covid backlog and average waiting times for elective treatment are coming down.

The RCOG is calling for much greater attention to women's views, and for care to be designed around their needs.

The woman who went undiagnosed for 12 years

Chetna Mistry says she is a "prisoner" to endometriosis, a painful condition in which tissue similar to the lining of the womb grows in other places, like the ovaries.

Chetna Mistry says she is a shadow of her former self

She described it as "a whole-body disease which affects you physically and mentally".

It has left her infertile, and, at 42, she needs a hysterectomy.

Chetna said she was referred to a specialist in June 2020, but 21 months later still does not have a date for surgery.

In the meantime, she has been admitted to hospital several times, in uncontrollable pain, and believes her condition has deteriorated.

She said: "I'm pretty much house-bound now, due to the pain. I'm a shadow of my former self."

She sent us this video showing how painful it can be when she's having a flare-up.

Pain is also a constant companion for Lucy Reddin.

She hasn't been to work for a month. But she feels that a hysterectomy would solve many of her problems.

She was referred for help in March 2021 and said she needs support while on the waiting list.

Lucy said: "It's cruel. It's cruel to leave somebody waiting there for that long.

"You wouldn't do that to a dog. Why are we doing it to us?"

She would like more advice on pain management, as well as mental health services.

Her voice broke as she said: "I felt suicidal at times with this condition, the level of pain that it gives me.

"I'd like to think I would never do it. But in that moment of that pain, you just want it to stop, you just want it to go away."

Deteriorating situation

Problems with gynaecology did not start with the pandemic, but it made things much worse.

In February 2020 the gynaecology waiting list in England stood at 286,008.

In the most recent figures, for January 2022, it has risen to 456,938.

Before COVID, 66 patients were waiting more than a year for treatment. Now, that has gone up to almost 25,000.

More than 1,300 have been on a waiting list for two years.

Data analysis firm LCP suggests these numbers don't nearly reflect the true scale of the problem.

It compared the number of new referrals during the pandemic to previous years - and believes that more than 400,000 women haven't come forward for help yet.

These 'hidden referrals' would suggest that the waiting list in England would stand at more than 850,000.

It is not possible to give direct comparisons with Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, because the devolved nations all collect and report data slightly differently.

But it is very clear that across the UK, gynaecology waiting lists are growing.

Many of these conditions are progressive. If left untreated, they can potentially need more complex or invasive surgery.

'Gender bias'

RCOG president Dr Edward Morris said he felt helpless not being able to speed up access to care for women and people on his waiting lists.

"There is an element of gender bias in the system. I don't believe that we are listening to voices of women as well as we should be.

"The priority they urgently need is not being given to them."

The Royal College asked 830 women on waiting lists about the other impacts on their lives.

Eight out of ten said their mental health had suffered, and 77% said their condition was stopping them being able to work or socialise as normal.

Conditions like endometriosis and fibroids can affect fertility.

Some women are waiting for surgery for these conditions, before they can start fertility treatment. But there is an age limit for IVF on the NHS, and for some women it is too late.

The NHS is seeing record waiting lists across the board - more than six million people in England.

It is expected to get worse before it gets better. The National Audit Office predicts that numbers could rise to between seven million and 12 million in the next few years.

Much of the priority is on people with life-threatening conditions.

But Dr Morris wants things to be "evened out across the NHS" so that gynaecology is given the same focus as comparable specialties.

He said this must start with authorities listening to women, hearing the impact these conditions have on their lives, and designing care around them.

An NHS spokesperson said: "NHS hospitals have treated over 640,000 patients with Covid, all while rolling out the biggest and fastest vaccination programme in NHS history - but backlogs have built up over the last two years since the pandemic started.

"However, staff are making progress on dealing with the Covid backlog with the latest data showing staff delivered more than half a million more tests, checks and procedures in January compared to the same month last year, while average waiting times for elective treatment are down by more than six weeks on their peak in the pandemic - so as has been the case throughout the pandemic, please come forward for care if you have any concerns."