Alison lies awake as a man drills into her leg, and 7m people wish they were her

It’s not the most sexy procedure, but for the patient, it’s life-changing.

Alison Fletcher lies heavily-sedated but awake, surrounded by a medical team. Her leg is coated in iodine and they set to work with an array of tools that wouldn’t look out of place at a construction site.

Drills, hammers, chisels. Her leg, to the untrained eye, barely resembles a leg anymore. That may sound horrendous. It could be a body-horror film.

But Alison is at the front of a queue of 7.62m people - and the majority of those are desperate to be in her position.

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That is the latest number of people currently sitting on an NHS waiting list – many for procedures that can be planned in, and are considered ‘routine’ rather than emergency, known as 'elective' surgeries.

In Greater Manchester, nearly half a million people are still waiting for treatment, almost 30,000 of them have been there for more than a year.

Alison Fletcher, 65, knows exactly what it's like to be apprehensively waiting for that life-changing call to finally book an operation.

A keen swimmer, walker and tourist, her favourite things in life were stolen from her when a fall at work revealed that she would eventually need both knees replaced. After 12 months of appointments, the moment has arrived. She is lying in an operating theatre.

The Manchester Evening News has been given special access, with the consent of the patient, to document the scenes usually only witnessed by a handful of people.

To many, the mammoth waiting list figure is incomprehensible. But for each of those 7.62 million people, the arduous wait is immensely personal. Some will have been waiting so long that their