HUNDREDS of people have been waiting to be treated at Royal Bolton Hospital for more than a year as the NHS trust faces “enormous” challenges with their waiting list which is expected to grow to around 31,000 by March.

There are now 584 patients waiting more than 52 weeks for treatment, up from just 11 in January before the COVID-19 outbreak began.

But Bolton NHS Foundation Trust still has a limited capacity due to the coronavirus crisis and this will continue as it prepares for a second wave.

Half of the hospital’s theatre capacity is being protected for urgent care and anaesthetic staff deployed to critical care are only returning this month.

Chief operating officer Andy Ennis told the board of directors that many patients who have been on the waiting list for more than a year are “clinically lower risk” – but this means higher urgency new patients will jump the queue.

He said: “The challenges that Covid has created are enormous in terms of impacts on our elected activity, the capacity to do it and how we function going forward in the future.

“Bolton has done very well actually managing waiting lists. At the moment it’s sitting still at 20,000, and that’s partly because referrals dropped through the floor during the first three months of the Covid outbreak since March.

“They are now recovering and in fact they are recovering faster than the rest of [Greater] Manchester – Bolton’s always special that way – and it looks like by September we’ll be back on track for full referrals.

“But that’s creating a problem in terms of capacity. Our projected position is over 31,000 by the end of the year if we did nothing differently. If we just did our normal levels, the risk is that we’ll have over 31,000 patients waiting.

“The challenge within that is it’s not just about the numbers waiting, it’s about the waiting list itself.

“We’re now in a difficult situation. Referrals are coming back in, we’ve had a number of patients who are waiting on the list for a long time, and then there are patients who are Category 1 and 2 coming in and what capacity we’ve got is being prioritised for those patients first because they’re clinically urgent.

“So of course, the ones with the least clinical urgency wait longer and longer. There’s a challenge for us in how we respond and react to this.”

Every patient who is on a waiting list is now being reviewed regularly by senior medical staff to see if their circumstances have changed and whether they their treatment needs to be brought forward.

The trust is also working with private hospitals to get through the backlog and has commissioned all of the capacity at The Beaumont Hospital, Mr Ennis said.