More than 3,500 patients died while on one NHS trust’s waiting list last year.

The data was revealed by Royal Free NHS Trust, which runs three hospitals in north London, after a Freedom of Information (FOI) request by the Labour Party.

It showed that in 2022, 3,615 patients died while on the trust’s waiting lists, with 911 of those having waited for more than 18 weeks for treatment.

The NHS Constitution states that the maximum waiting time for non-urgent treatments is 18 weeks.

The Royal Free NHS Trust says that death while waiting for treatment is not indicative of the wait being a contribution to, or cause of, death.

Wes Streeting, Labour’s shadow health secretary, claimed that the figures show that the “basic promise” of the NHS has been broken.

He claimed: “Record numbers of people are spending their final months in pain and agony, waiting for treatment that never arrives.”

Royal Free NHS Trust operates Royal Free Hospital in Hampstead, Barnet Hospital in Chipping Barnet, and Chase Farm Hospital in Enfield.

Dan Tomlinson, Labour’s Parliamentary Candidate for Chipping Barnet at the next general election, claimed that investing in NHS services would be one of his priorities.

He said: “The healthcare crisis facing patients in Barnet is real, and it is having tragic consequences.

“Too many of our neighbours and friends here in Barnet are not receiving the care they need fast enough, and this has to change."

A Royal Free London spokesperson said: “There is nothing to indicate that waiting for an elective procedure contributed to or caused the death of the patients captured in this data.

“A routine review of patients waiting longer than 18 weeks for treatment at the Royal Free London confirmed that none came to severe harm or died as a result of their wait.

“We have recently made significant progress in reducing waiting times and many of our services continue to run additional clinics and surgical lists during evenings and weekends, so patients are seen as soon as possible.

"We always prioritise patients according to clinical need.”

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson told PA: “Waiting times for urgent and emergency care have substantially reduced from the peak of winter pressures in December and the NHS is on track to deliver 5,000 permanent hospital beds for next winter as well as an extra 3,000 virtual ward beds to safely care for people from home, resulting in over 10,000 in total by autumn.”