Recovering from Covid will take 'years rather than months,' local health bosses have been warned. 

Work to start making the way through a backlog of patients on waiting lists is underway but progress will take time, a meeting of the city, county and Rutland's clinical commissioning groups was told. 

Updating the governing body on the Covid situation, Rachna Vyas, executive director of integration and transformation at the city, county and Rutland's clinical commissioning groups, said:"We need to acknowledge that this recovery is going to take years rather than months, particularly for those patients who are waiting for things that are not priority one or priority two. 

"The approach will, of course, be based on clinical prioritisation and will be a collective approach. Moving from crisis management effectively into this massive backlog that people are being asked to look at means that we need to coordinate this across the system."

A move to Covid alert level five meant that the majority of all but urgent emergency and life-saving surgery was halted within University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust. 

Pre-Covid there were no patients that had been waiting a year or more for treatment – in January the figure stood at 8,424. There are 80,593 patients recorded as incompletes – patients who have been referred on to consultant-led referral to treatment (RTT) pathways, but whose treatment had not yet started.

Ms Vyas said: "We began recovery planning four weeks ago when we were still in the peak, and we've completed work so that any patients who are at the potential risk of harm will be seen and prioritised in the specialties within UHL.

"We've also collaboratively developed a plan for restoration of theatre and elective activity, which takes into account all of our independent sector providers. 

"We've got a successful waiting list validation process underway, so we are making sure that the waiting list figures are right before we can make sure we are able to get planning for the next couple of months.

"We do have a very significant backlog in terms of patients who have been waiting 52 weeks, there is no getting away from that. All of these actions will help us manage that waiting list and help to make sure that patients are getting the care they need as quickly as they can.†

Work is also ongoing to make sure Nuffield and Spire can continue assisting with elective procedures.

Wards are also being converted back from Covid positive to negative treatment areas to prepare for elective patients.

Ms Vyas added: "We are restoring a heap of wards now that were Covid positive to Covid negative and the important thing about realigning wards from medicine back to surgery is that it will allow us to start work on category 1 and 2 patients who are elective care and cancer patients as well. That will help speed up waiting time management from that point of view."