King's College Hospital Trust has been forced to put all potentially life-saving cancer operations on hold because of the number of beds taken by coronavirus patients.

The NHS trust has cancelled all ‘Priority 2’ operations, which are those doctors judge need to be carried out within 28 days. A spokesperson for the trust said that all elective procedures would be postponed, expect cases where a delay ‘would cause immediate harm’.

Although it hasn't yet emerged as an issue affecting hospitals outside London, Neil Mortensen, president of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, said he had heard from members that ‘hospitals across London are having to cancel cancer surgeries as a result of the huge number of Covid-19 patients being hospitalised’.

NHS England developed guidance in March on prioritising patients who needed operations, with emergency procedures that needed to be carried out within 24 hours coming first. The 28-day guideline, as being carried out at King’s, is based on the patient's individual symptoms and the expected growth rate of their particular cancer.

Genevieve Edwards, chief executive at Bowel Cancer UK, has highlighted research showing that even a month's delay to cancer treatment can increase a person's risk of dying by up to 13 per cent.

NHS Providers, which represents hospital bosses in England, said trusts were doing all they could to ‘prioritise on the basis of clinical need’.