Improvements in NHS performance could be jeopardised by winter

• The total waiting list for procedures and appointments stayed around 7.62 million in July, with a small rise of around 1,651 from June.  
• Some 76.3% of patients were admitted, transferred or discharged from A&E departments within four hours in August, up very slightly on the 75.2% in July.  
• There were 2.16 million attendances at A&Es across England in August, with 525,633 emergency admissions, making it one of the busiest August on record. 
• Category 2 ambulance average response time for August was 27 minutes and 25 seconds against the 30-minute NHS operational planning guidance target for 2024/25
• For Category 1 ambulances, the average response time was 8 minutes and 3 seconds in August, compared to 8 minutes and 15 seconds in July.
• In July 76.2% of cancer patients were told they had cancer or had it definitively ruled out within 28 days, down from 76.3% in June. This is against the target of 75%. 

Responding to the latest NHS performance statistics Rory Deighton, director of the NHS Confederation’s Acute Network, said:

“These figures reinforce just how much pressure the NHS is under and just how hard staff are working to improve performance and provide the best care possible for patients.

“Despite A&Es seeing their busiest summer on record more patients are being seen within the four-hour target, trolley waits have fallen in recent months and fewer people are waiting longer than 12 hours. Ambulance response times have also improved. But patients are still waiting too long, and these positive signs of progress could easily be lost if the NHS does not have the support and resources to cope with what could be a very difficult winter.

“As Lord Darzi has highlighted in his report, the health service has been starved of capital over the last decade, hampering its productivity. His report also shows that revenue funding growth has stagnated. NHS leaders are currently facing really difficult decisions over whether to cut staff or services to balance their books when they want to be ramping up capacity to prepare for winter.

“Without immediate funding there is a very real risk the NHS falls into crisis this winter, with ambulance response and handover delays, overcrowded A&Es and people stuck in hospital beds because of a lack of community and social care. NHS leaders and their teams have worked very hard to stabilise the waiting lists and cut some of the longest waits – it would be demoralising for staff to throw away these improvements. 

“Our members have welcomed the government’s commitment to improving the NHS and the Darzi report has thoroughly set out the diagnosis of the NHS’s ills. Now the government has to set out how it will solve these intractable problems. 

“NHS leaders recognise the benefits of moving care closer to home with a greater focus on prevention but tell us that the current financial situation is making this very difficult. There needs to be more capital investment to repair estates and improve productivity. 

“The Prime Minister and Secretary of State have set out the three big shifts they want for the NHS, and said the service needs to ‘reform or die’. But these reforms will not come for free, with demand so high it is not as simple as taking money from one part of the NHS to invest in another.”