longer infectious by the end of day five, and we want to use the testing capacity that we ve built up to help these people leave isolation safely. new figures from nhs england show the havoc the pandemic has played with waiting times. in november 2021, 6 million people were waiting for planned surgery. 307,000 people have been waiting more than a year for their treatment. and december saw a record number of ambulance call outs for the most urgent cases, but average response times failed to meet current targets. fraser knows first hand the impact a delayed ambulance can have. when he had a heart attack six years ago, an ambulance was there within minutes. on new year s day he experienced the same symptoms, but this time he was told it would be at least two hours before an ambulance could get to him. this time it was going through my mind of if it s two hours for the ambulance just to get here,
around 5%, were absent because of covid sickness or isolation last week. four patients waiting. and as more staff fall sick, it s needed everyone to get involved. we ve got support from across the organisation of admin staff coming to help us in the mornings, to support with comfort with the patients. so it s a real team effort? absolutely, it s been like that from day one. to ease the pressure on understaffed hospital departments, the government has just changed the rules so isolation can end on day six. ukhsa data shows that around two thirds of positive cases are no longer infectious by the end of day five, and we want to use the testing capacity that we ve built up to help these people leave isolation safely. new figures from nhs england show the havoc the pandemic has played with waiting times. in november 2021, six million people were waiting for planned surgery. 307,000 people have been waiting more than a year for their treatment.
were waiting for planned surgery. 307,000 people have been waiting more than a year for their treatment. and december saw a record number of ambulance call outs for the most urgent cases, but average response times failed to meet current targets. fraser knows first hand the impact a delayed ambulance can have. when he had a heart attack six years ago, an ambulance was there within minutes. on new year s day he experienced the same symptoms, but this time he was told it would be at least two hours before an ambulance could get to him. this time it was going through my mind of if its two hours for the ambulance just to get here, i haven t got a chance. who s going to look after my partner and my kids if this doesn t get sorted in time? in winter the nhs is running hot. this is shaping up to be one of the toughest periods the health service and those patients waiting for treatment have experienced.