Tens of thousands of patients were waiting for routine treatment at York's hospital trust in April, figures show.

And a think tank has warned the Government is "moving in the opposite direction" from its goal of bringing waiting lists down.

NHS England figures show 51,057 patients were waiting for non-urgent elective operations or treatment at York and Scarborough Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust at the end of April – up from 49,714 in March, and 40,863 in April 2022.

Of those, 3,939 (eight per cent) had been waiting for longer than a year.

The median waiting time from referral at an NHS trust to treatment at York and Scarborough hospitals was 19 weeks at the end of April – the same as in March.

A spokesperson for York's hospital trust said the pandemic had impacted on waiting times and apologised to those spending longer on waiting lists. They added that there was a recovery plan in place and good progress was being made.

Nationally, 7.4 million people were waiting to start treatment at the end of April.

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Dr Sarah Scobie, acting director of research at the Nuffield Trust think tank said: "Yet another month of hitting a record high for the NHS waiting list will be very worrying for the government and shows it is moving in the opposite direction from its ambition to bring down waiting lists by 2025."

She said the charity is concerned by the speed and scale at which the backlog is growing.

"The NHS and its staff are throwing more and more resources at recovering the backlog as the summer months approach, but challenges, including industrial action and staff absences, make keeping up with the weight of demand incredibly difficult," she added.

Separate figures show 1.6 million patients in England were waiting for a key diagnostic test in April – the same as in March.

At York's trust, which runs York Hospital and Scarborough Hospital, 11,921 patients were waiting for one of 14 standard tests, such as an MRI scan, non-obstetric ultrasound or gastroscopy at this time.

Of them, 5,134 (43 per cent) had been waiting for at least six weeks.

Other figures show cancer patients at York's trust are not being seen quickly enough.

The NHS states 85 per cent of cancer patients urgently referred by a GP should start treatment within 62 days.

But NHS England data shows just 56 per cent of patients urgently referred by the NHS who received cancer treatment at the York and Scarborough hospitals in April began treatment within two months of their referral.

That was down from both 65 per cent in March, and 72 per cent in April last year.

Cancer Research UK’s director of evidence and implementation Naser Turabi said: "Today’s data shows that all cancer waiting time targets in England have been missed and are amongst the worst on record.

"Despite the tireless work of NHS staff, people affected by cancer continue to experience unacceptable delays for vital diagnosis and treatment.

"We need to see urgent political leadership and action on cancer, and urge the UK Government to publish the long-awaited workforce plan for England," he added.

A spokesperson for the York and Scarborough trust said: “It’s well documented that the pandemic impacted on patient care, particularly waiting times for planned operations, procedures, diagnostic tests and appointments. We recognise that this means some patients are spending a longer time on waiting lists and we are sorry for the inconvenience and distress that this causes for them.

“The trust has a detailed recovery plan and supporting workstreams in place to help us achieve national targets, and we are working closely with ICB colleagues and NHS England to deliver this.

“Good progress is being made to reduce the time that patients are waiting, and this is now reducing week on week for those waiting more than 78 weeks. We are also on track to have no patients waiting more than 65 weeks by April 2024.

“We still have work to do, but this is testament to the hard work of our staff who have achieved this despite one of the busiest winters on record and the impact of industrial action.”

NHS England said staff are continuing to make progress on recovering routine services despite it facing "the most disruptive industrial action in its history in April", with four days of strikes by junior doctors resulting in more than 195,000 appointments and procedures having to be rescheduled.

Accident and emergency units across the country also experienced the busiest May on record, it said.