PATIENTS risk being left in “unnecessary pain” as NHS chiefs force hospitals to introduce minimum waiting times for treatment, health experts warned today.

Some local NHS organisations have introduced minimum waiting times as part of their drive to control costs and set priorities, telling hospitals they will only pay if patients have waited three months or more for things such as hip replacements.

In Devon, a 14-week wait has been applied to “clinically routine cases” while in Shropshire, a minimum wait of 16-18 weeks applies “unless there is verifiable clinical urgency,” an investigation by The Times reported.

In South Yorkshire, as a result of “significant financial challenge” the region is “requiring providers to slow down the rate of delivery to a minimum of 13 weeks,” documents suggest.

Earlier this year, NHS England published guidance with detail on minimum waits, saying that hospital trusts and local commissioners must agree plans on the expected “volume of activity” across the year.

It said commissioners may wish to set “activity planning assumptions,” which can include introducing minimum waiting times.

In April, NHS England chief executive Sir Jim Mackey told a Health Service Journal summit that the new rules would give commissioners “the ability to say to providers: ‘You might be able to do a cataract in four days, but I want you to do it in 10 weeks, because that’s what we’ve decided is necessary’.”

He suggested that this may help support other priorities, for example big cancer or mental health waiting times.

However, experts said the move risked leaving people in pain or facing unnecessary delays.

Tim Mitchell, president of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, said: “Used in this way, minimum waiting times risk distorting clinical priorities and leaving patients in unnecessary pain and anxiety.

“Treatment should be delivered as promptly as possible, based on clinical need.

“We recognise the financial pressures facing the NHS but delaying treatment to balance the books is not the answer.

“Instead, we need targeted investment to expand surgical capacity and upgrade the ageing NHS buildings and infrastructure that continue to hold back efforts to meet the 18-week waiting time target.”

An NHS spokesman said: “We have asked all parts of the NHS to bring waiting times down while we continue to prioritise the most clinically urgent patients.”

Keep Our NHS Public co-chairman Dr John Puntis said: "Patients in pain are one group that should be prioritised for surgery and it is clinicians and patients working together who are the right people to come to judgements about how long someone can wait.

"Letting financial considerations override such decision making in an attempt to control budgets is both the wrong approach and a predictable consequence of current government denial that the NHS is seriously underfunded and understaffed."