Full Story in The Telegraph 18 February 2018
Patients will be forced to endure pain, disability and could even see their lives cut short by increasing waiting times for routine operations under measures aimed to cut costs, surgeons have warned.
NHS officials have introduced new limits which mean patients in some parts of the country will be made to wait at least three months for routine surgery, such as hip operations and cardiac procedures.
The Royal College of Surgeons last night attacked the move, raising fears that other parts of the country could follow suite in a desperate attempt to cut costs and push spending into a new financial year.
The measures, which have been introduced in Lincolnshire, mean instead of waiting an average of seven and a half weeks for operations, patients will have to wait at least a month longer before they can have any routine operations. Cancer surgery and emergency cases are excluded from the restrictions.