A&E departments and ambulance crews faced their busiest October on record – and now the NHS is braced for “one of the toughest winters the health service has faced”.
New figures from NHS England revealed up to 40% of those attending A&E are already waiting longer than four hours, with the number surging from 129,004 patients in September to 142,734 in October.
Of those admitted to hospital after attending an accident or emergency department, one in 10 are having to wait 12 hours or longer for a bed – 54,314 in October, up from 44,765 in September.
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Waits for cancer treatment are also rising, the figures revealed.
In September, 73.9% of patients who suspected they had cancer had the disease either diagnosed or ruled out within 28 days, down from 74.6% in August, and below the target of 75%.
In the same period, the proportion of patients who had waited no longer than 62 days for their first definitive cancer treatment fell from 69.1% to 67.9%.
It comes as thousands of resident doctors across England are preparing to strike for five days from 7am on Friday.
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Overall, an estimated 7.39 million treatments were waiting to be carried out at the end of September, relating to 6.24 million patients, down from 7.41 million treatments and 6.25 million patients at the end of August.
Health Secretary Wes Streeting said the slight decline on the number waiting for treatment was evidence the NHS was “now on the road to recovery”.
But Meghana Pandit, NHS national medical director, warned that services would be pushed to capacity this winter.
She said: “It is fantastic news that the health service managed to get the waiting list down in September, but there’s no doubt NHS staff will be approaching their limits this winter.
“Flu is peaking early and looking like it will be long lasting, while industrial action starting on Friday comes on the back of the busiest October in A&E in NHS history.”
To ease the pressure, she urged the public to get flu, COVID, and RSV jabs, to use the NHS 111 helpline for non-urgent help, and to only call 999 or attend A&E for life-threatening emergencies.
Tim Gardner, assistant director of policy at the Health Foundation, painted a similarly ominous picture.
He said: “The figures present a challenging outlook for the NHS, particularly as it heads into what NHS leaders have warned is likely to be one of the toughest winters the health service has faced.”
It came as, at the end of September, an estimated 1,489 patients were waiting more than 18 months to start routine hospital treatment, up from 1,418 in August.
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But health chiefs noted that the number stood at 2,701 a year earlier, in September 2024.
There was also a drop in the number of people waiting more than a year to start routine hospital treatment, from 190,549 at the end of August to 180,329 a month later.
The number now represents 2.4% of the total, down from 2.6% a month before – with a goal to get it below 1% by March next year.
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14.4 million flu vaccines have also been delivered so far this autumn – some 160,000 more than at the same point last year.
Mr Streeting said: “The past year is the first time in 15 years that waiting lists have fallen.
“There’s a long way to go, but the NHS is now on the road to recovery,” he added.
