A Bolton councillor has praised the NHS’s new scheme to ‘virtually eliminate’ the list of those who have waited more than two years for treatment by offering patients the option to travel elsewhere for treatment.

The number who have waited for two years or more to receive treatment has fallen from a peak of 22,500 in January to 6,700, after the Covid-19 pandemic caused waiting lists to mount.

People who remain on the waiting list are being asked whether they are prepared to travel to receive treatment. More than 400 have agreed, with 140 booked in for surgery at a different hospital.

Cllr Andy Morgan said: “Anything that we can do to put waiting lists down is welcome.

“People want the treatment so majority of them will be accepting of the suggestions to travel elsewhere if appropriate for them.

“We’ve got the backlog from Covid that we must address but nobody will be forced to go somewhere else, they can choose to go.

“Patients will have to agree to it. I’m contacted regularly by people having to wait long for treatment so hopefully this will help.”

The NHS has said it will cover travel and accommodation costs to patients “where appropriate”.

NHS England findings show that a total 33,598 patients were waiting for non-urgent operations or treatment at Bolton NHS Foundation Trust by the end of April, up from 32,659 the month before.

Around five per cent of them, coming to 1,660 people, had been waiting for more than a year, with a large backlog still left by the legacy of the pandemic.

Cllr Morgan said: “People are in pain and want treatment to be sooner but of course we want to get treatment back at Bolton as fast as we can.

“Some people may opt to wait longer but we hope to get the waiting down through this so those who want to wait, don’t wait long.”

The fall in waiting list numbers comes after the busiest ever May for emergency care, with 2.2 million A&E visits and almost 78,000 of the most urgent ambulance call-outs.

NHS chief executive Amanda Pritchard called it the ‘biggest and most ambitious catch-up programme in NHS history’ and said it was doing well to eliminate waiting times.