New data shows welcome NHS performance improvements but service still under pressure

• The total waiting list for procedures and appointments fell to 7.43 million in January, down from 7.46 million in December;
• Some 73.4% of patients were admitted, transferred or discharged from A&E departments within four hours in February;
• There were 2.08 million attendances at A&Es and 496,095 emergency admissions across England in February, both down on January;
• The average Category 2 ambulance response time for February was 31 minutes and 22 seconds, while for Category 1 it was 8 minutes and 4 seconds – both faster than January;
• There were 1,308 patients in hospital with flu on average each day last week, down from 1,546 the week before;  
• On average there were 1,301 adult beds closed due to patients in hospital with norovirus-like symptoms last week, down from 1,365 the previous week;
• On average, 13,740 beds each day were filled with patients no longer meeting the criteria to reside in hospital last week.

Responding to the latest NHS England urgent and emergency care situation reports and performance data Dr Layla McCay, policy director at the NHS Confederation, said:

“There are some very welcome performance improvements as the NHS moves out of winter, with A&E waits, ambulance responses and handovers all heading in the right direction.

“But it is still clear that the health system is under a huge amount of pressure – with Norovirus and bed occupancy levels still very high. There was an average of 13,740 patients medically fit enough to be discharged stuck in hospital beds each day last week, often due to a lack of capacity in social and community care. We know these delays cause bottlenecks in hospitals which can cause long waits in A&E and ambulance handover delays. It is vital that the challenges in social care are addressed if performance across urgent and emergency care performance is to be maintained.

“The drop in waiting lists for sixth month in a row and increase in elective treatments delivered is testament to the hard work of NHS leaders and their teams. But no one is under any illusions of how far we have to go to meet the 18-week target or eliminate the 7.4 million waiting list. 

“We look forward to working with the government and NHS England on implementing the urgent and emergency care improvement plan.”