FIGURES have revealed the backlog facing doctors in north Essex with one patient left on a waiting list for four and a half years.

A Freedom of Information request found at the East Suffolk and North Essex Trust, which runs Colchester Hospital, eight patients waited more than three years for treatment.

A further two waited more than four years.

One patient was still waiting to start oral surgery treatment after four and a half years.

This is understood to be the longest wait of all the hospital trusts who responded to the FOI request from the PA News Agency.

Neill Moloney, managing director of the trust, added: “Our teams are doing all they can to tackle waiting lists and treat our patients in the communities we serve as quickly and safely as possible.

“Waiting lists have undoubtedly increased due to the Covid-19 pandemic response and its ongoing impact, but we do not want anyone to be in pain, or waiting, any longer than necessary.

“We are working hard to reduce the backlog at our trust, including this longest wait in oral and maxillofacial surgery, and we are prioritising patients based on clinical need, in line with national guidance for all NHS trusts.”

At the Mid and South Essex Trust, which runs hospitals in Chelmsford, Basildon and Southend there were 14 patients who waited more than three years.

A further six waited four years.

One patient was recorded as having waited 390 weeks - equivalent to seven years - but the trust said the patient had been under a “prolonged period of active monitoring” and was actually being seen and monitored.

To find out how much longer patients had been waiting over the two-year mark, PA sent Freedom of Information requests to 125 non-specialist acute hospital trusts in England.

Trusts were asked how many patients had been waiting for three years in January – in line with the latest available data from the NHS – how many had been waiting for at least four years, and then the longest period a patient had been waiting for an appointment.

In total 69 trusts responded to the FOI at the time of publication.