Figures show 847 patients died while on in the Mid Yorkshire NHS Trust waiting lists

According data obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, record numbers of people are passing away having never received the treatment they were waiting for.

Around 121,000 people are thought to have died across England last year while still waiting for NHS care, double the number of people who died on waiting lists five years ago.

The figures are also higher than in 2021, when the country was still in the midst of the covid pandemic.

At the Mid Yorkshire trust alone, which serves Wakefield, Pontefract and Dewsbury, 209 people died having been waiting for treatment for longer than 18 weeks.

The Labour party submitted information requests to every NHS trust in England, receiving 35 responses out of 138 acute trusts.

The total number of deaths from those who responded was 30,611 deaths.

The party claims the figure would be 120,695 deaths when extrapolated out to all trusts.

Wakefield MP Simon Lightwood said: “Despite the heroic efforts of NHS staff, record numbers of people are spending their final months in pain and agony, waiting for treatment that never arrives.

“The basic promise of the NHS – that it will be there for us when we need it – has been broken.

“The longer the Conservatives are in office, the longer patients will wait.

“Only Labour can rescue the NHS from this crisis and restore it to good health.

“We will train the staff needed to treat patients on time again, and reform the service to make it fit for the future.”

The number of people waiting for routine NHS treatment across the country hit a record high of 7.6m in July.

There are currently 55,814 patients, around one in ten people served by the trust, on a waiting list for treatment.

In 2017/18. around 60,000 patients died while on NHS waiting lists, and around 37,000 in 2012/13.

Chris Evans, deputy chief executive at the Mid Yorkshire Trust, which runs Pinderfields, Pontefract and Dewsbury hospitals, said: “We understand that waiting for further investigations or treatment is a worrying and stressful experience and we do of course offer our sincere condolences to the loved ones of any patient who has died whilst on our waiting list, whether or not the cause of death was related to their referral to us.

“Significant progress has already been made to reduce waiting times for planned care which has included, actively growing our surgical capacity by improving our surgical facilities and investing in new equipment which allows us to carry out surgical procedures in a less invasive manner, reducing the time patients spend in hospital and providing capacity for more patients.

“However, long waits are not acceptable and we acknowledge there is more to do fully recover services since the pandemic, which is why reducing waiting times continues to be a trust priority.”