NEW figures show how Covid has hit the city's hospital with the number of people waiting a year or more for treatment rising by more than 6,000 in the last 12 months.

The latest NHS figures show that, as of the end of April, 6,249 people at Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust had been waiting a year or more for treatment compared to just seven people a year earlier.

The figures, which were published on Thursday (June 10), show that three people have been waiting two years or more for treatment and 907 people in Worcestershire have been waiting 18 months or more.

The statistics illustrate the huge disruption to normal NHS services that the pandemic has brought since last year and the huge backlog that hospitals are now facing.

Figures show that 70 per cent of people in Worcestershire were seen within 18 weeks in 2020 compared to just 50 per cent a year later - way below the 92 per cent target set by the NHS itself.

The number of people waiting for treatment increased by almost half from 33,087 people in April 2020 to 48,921 in April this year.

The coronavirus pandemic also hit the average wait for treatment in Worcestershire which went from 13 weeks to 17 weeks in the space of a year.

NHS England data also showed that 11,218 people were waiting for a diagnosis with more than half waiting for six weeks and just under a quarter waiting for three months or more.

Additional statistics for A&E waiting times show that 78 per cent of people who attended were seen within four hours in May compared to 91 per cent a year ago.

Almost 4,000 more people attended A&E last month than they did a year ago.

The outlook is no different nationally where the number of people waiting for hospital treatment in surpassed five million.

It is the number of people ever recorded since records began in August 2007.

The figure has increased every month since May 2020, when it was 3.83 million people.