Four Million NHS patients are currently on waiting lists for surgery – the highest number in the last ten years.

Official NHS performance statistics have revealed that over 4 million patients are currently waiting to be admitted to hospital in England to have surgery – this is the highest number in last 10 years.

Experts have said that an ongoing stream of missed performance targets in A&E, surgical waiting lists and cancer care, clearly demonstrates that the health service is now unsustainable unless it receives additional funding.

Shortages of money, staff and primary care mean that the NHS can not cope with an ongoing and unprecedented rise in demand.

Danny Mortimer, the Deputy Chief Executive of the NHS Confederation, said;

“The current system is unsustainable. We simply do not have the resources to deliver what the public now expects”.

The statistics show that just over 4 million patients were waiting to undergo non-urgent operations such as a cataract removals and hip replacements at the end of June – the highest figure since August 2007 and the second highest ever on record.

Jonathan Ashworth, The Shadow Health Secretary, said: “It is staggering that this government have allowed the NHS waiting list to rise over 4 million. A year of Theresa May’s mismanagement of the NHS has pushed services to the brink and left thousands more waiting in pain for routine operations.”

The third series of the BBC2 documentary that has been commended across the NHS – ‘Hospital’ – will be filmed at Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust (NUH).

Work has already started on the third series of ‘Hospital,’ which is coming to Nottingham after two series of the acclaimed documentary at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust in London.

The Nottingham trust has recently been in the news for their ‘innovative’ #EndPJparalysis and #EDFit2Sit campaigns.

The six-part series will go behind the scenes at Queen’s Medical Centre and Nottingham City Hospital to show how staff are managing and responding to the competing pressures and demands on a daily basis to ensure patients get the best possible care. It also aims to show how staff are working with partners across the health and social care system to respond to changing needs, against the backdrop of the NHS’s toughest ever financial challenge.

Laura Skaife-Knight, NUH’s Director of Communications and External Relations, said: “Taking part in ‘Hospital’ was a carefully considered decision, but in the end an easy one to make. NUH has an ambition to be the NHS leader in openness and transparency and giving access to the cameras to follow the stories of our patients and staff is one of the ways we will achieve this.

“What is unique about ‘Hospital’ is that it goes beyond the headlines and gets under the skin of the challenges our staff experience every day and very often the difficult decisions they face in their efforts to do what is right for patients, their loved ones and carers.

“People working across the NHS can relate to these stories, many of which are replicated in many hospitals and healthcare settings up and down the country. We have incredibly dedicated staff working across our hospitals, many leading the way in their fields nationally; in some cases internationally – and yet too often their jobs are made all the more difficult because of the imperfect systems in which they are operating at both Trust and system level.”

Series 3 will be filmed at NUH in January and February 2018 and is expected to be broadcast in Spring 2018.

Lorraine Charker-Phillips, Head of Programmes for Label 1, said: “When we first met the team at NUH we were really impressed by their pride, passion and enthusiasm for the work that they do. We very much look forward to making the third series of ‘Hospital’with them.”

You can watch the previous serious of ‘Hospital’ on BBC iPlayer.