Hundreds of residents are now waiting more than two years for planned treatment after the Covid pandemic took its toll on health services.

Thousands more patients face delays of over a year for elective procedures, a health boss has revealed to Staffordshire County Council members. And issues also remain around meeting cancer diagnosis and treatment targets.

Marcus Warnes, Staffordshire and Stoke on Trent CCGs' (Clinical Commissioning Groups') accountable officer, said: "We were making really good progress of recovery up until winter but we've had some real challenges since then. I think it's fair to say that we're not alone – across the country there are some real ongoing challenges particularly around elective and cancer recovery.

"Pre-Covid I had no patients anywhere in any hospital that waited more than 52 weeks for an elective procedure. As of the latest validated data we've got 6,500.

"And in terms of 104-week waits – people waiting over two years for treatment – we had none of those either pre-pandemic. We've now got over 500 across our providers and some particular challenges at UHNM (University Hospitals of North Midlands NHS Trust).

"There are some national targets we have to hit, for example no 104-week waiters by July. Whilst we are making progress we are struggling on some of that.

"That's largely down to workforce and also the fact the waiting lists have got so long they are going to take some time to reduce. There are some real challenges in areas like trauma, orthopaedics and general surgery in terms of elective waiting times.

"We are making good progress on cancer in a number of areas, which is one of the priority areas we are focusing in on. But we still have challenges around people on the 62-day pathway – that's people who have been referred with suspected cancer completing their first definitive treatment – particularly in colorectal and skin.

"It still feels like a fairly fragile situation we're in and it doesn't take much of an increase in people in beds with Covid before it starts putting significant pressure on our recovery programme, particularly around elective recovery."

Committee member Keith Flunder asked: "How are you going to try and improve the trend at the moment in relation to some of these 52-week waits and some of the breast cancer elements when they are still 25-30% below where your targets have been set? Is there anything else that needs to be done to try and improve on that?

"In reality these are people's lives."

Mr Warnes responded: "The situation is this is going to take years, not months. On over 52-week waits we are making progress – not as quickly as we would like because there are still people coming through the door and being added to the backlog.

"These are people, not statistics, who have lives to lead and are worried, anxious, concerned. They are maybe the main carer for someone else who is particularly vulnerable and can't provide that care because they have a dodgy hip or knee.

"The consequences of this are going beyond reds and greens on a dashboard."

He added that one of the issues was around cancer diagnostics and there was also a shortage of staff.

He said; "Patients with suspected cancer are referred through the two-week pathway, which means the GP needs to get the results back so they can decide what to do next. People who have a suspected cancer then need to receive their first definitive treatment within 31 days and the whole pathway has to be completed in 62 days – that's two months from a referral through to a first definitive treatment.

"Given all the other pressures in the system and just how pressured our workforce is, that's proving a very difficult pathway to deliver on. In certain cancer sites such as breast, colorectal and lower GI (gastrointestinal) that's resulting in longer waits than we would like.

"A huge amount of resources is being thrown at addressing that but we're not where we want to be yet. That will take some months before we get into a position where we're, if not fully back to where we were pre-pandemic, in a better position than we're seeing at the moment.

"Staffing is a massive problem. We don't have enough endoscopists so one of the reasons we're struggling around lower GI tract is there aren't enough people to do the colonoscopies required to see whether or not someone has cancer. That was a problem pre-pandemic and it is a problem now."

Health scrutiny committee chairman Councillor Jeremy Pert said: "We need a discussion on workforce because we will continue to have the same discussions for the next 20 years if we're not careful.

"We need to see what plans all providers have, both in social care and within the NHS, to bring people in and keep people within the system."