NHS England waiting list hits record high as 6.5m on hold for routine treatment

The number of people in England waiting to start routine hospital treatment has hit a record high.

An estimated 6.5 million people were waiting to start treatment at the end of September, up from 6.47m in August.

In terms of actual appointments – which includes individuals who are waiting for more than one treatment – the waiting list has increased to a new high of 7.77 million people at the end of September.

This is up from 7.75 million at the end of August, according to NHS England data.

It means more than a million patients are on more than one waiting list.

Figures also showed a total of 391,122 people in England had been waiting for more than a year – and around 10,201 people more than 18 months – to start routine hospital treatment at the end of September.

This is down from 396,643 – and up from 8,998 – at the end of August, respectively.

The government and NHS England set the ambition of eliminating all waits of more than 18 months by April this year, excluding exceptionally complex cases or patients who choose to wait longer – and all waits of more than a year by March 2025.

Ambulance response times

The average response time in October for ambulances in England dealing with the most urgent incidents, defined as calls from people with life-threatening illnesses or injuries, was 8 minutes 40 seconds.

This is up from 8 minutes 31 seconds in September and is above the target standard response time of seven minutes.

Further data revealed it took ambulances an average of 41 minutes 40 seconds to respond to Category 2 incidents – such as heart attacks and strokes – in October.

This was worse than in September (37 minutes 38 seconds) – but better than this time last year (61 minutes 19 seconds).

A&E performance

The number of people waiting more than 12 hours in A&E departments in England from a decision to admit to actually being admitted was 44,655 in October – up 35% from 33,059 in September.

The figure hit a record 54,573 in December 2022.

Around 29.8% of people attending A&Es in England in October had to wait more than four hours to be seen.

The number waiting went up from 125,787 in September to 144,926 in October.

It means around 70.2% of patients were seen within four hours last month, down from 71.6% in September.

The NHS recovery plan sets a target of March 2024 for 76% of patients attending A&E to be admitted, transferred or discharged within four hours.

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Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has made cutting waiting lists one of his priorities for 2023, pledging in January that “lists will fall and people will get the care they need more quickly”.

NHS England said major A&E services had the busiest October on record as 2.2 million people attended accident and emergency departments.

It said ambulance services also saw the busiest month of the year so far.

Health officials have also said they are trying to bring in measures to streamline services for patients with multiple needs, such as bringing together appointments to reduce the number of hospital visits.

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