Patient demand continues to rise as policy experts issue warnings of a challenging winter facing the NHS, ahead of the autumn budget later this month.
The latest NHS statistics shows there have been 1.2 million more A&E attendances so far this year compared to the same period pre-pandemic, with 20.4 million attendances from January to September 2024.
NHS staff in A&E also faced their busiest ever September with 2.21 million attendances, which followed the ‘busiest summer on record’, according to NHS England.
The statistics also showed the total waiting list rose in August by 18,614 to 7.64 million. Only 58.3% of patients had been waiting less than the NHS constitutional standard 18 weeks.
The King’s Fund warned these statistics showed the NHS was ‘approaching winter in bad shape’, and that the government must support the NHS in the upcoming autumn budget, on 30 October.
‘Industrial action is continuing, financial pressures are rising, and important performance targets continue to be missed. Despite the hard work of staff, patient care in the NHS continues to fall short of expectations,’ said chief analyst at The King’s Fund, Siva Anandaciva.
‘The government has made its diagnosis that the NHS is broken, now it must fix it,’ he added. ‘There have been some reports that the NHS will be at the centre of the upcoming budget, but against a backdrop of constrained public finances, the proof will be in the pudding of how far the government is willing to go to support health and care services ahead of next year’s multi-year spending review.’
He added that sticking plasters will not be the solutiovvn, but without an injection of more resources for winter, NHS services will have to make ‘harsh trade-offs’ between immediate winter preparations and longer-term improvement.
‘The Autumn Budget is a significant moment for this government. To govern is to choose, and ministers have some tough choices about how they will balance their significant ambitions to improve health services with the reality of tight public finances,’ he said.
The Nuffield Trust echoed calls for the government to act. Deputy director of research, Sarah Scobie, said: ‘The government needs to act fast on long waits for care, but we are still waiting for more detail on how Labour’s promise to increase appointments will improve waiting times. It is also crucial that plans to deal with the backlog of care confront inequalities in access.’
The Health Foundation’s assistant director of policy, Tim Gardner, added: ‘Today’s statistics reaffirm the need for reform and investment to get the NHS back on its feet.
‘The Government has pledged to create an NHS ‘fit for the future’, but achieving this will need reforms to be matched by investment. We estimate an additional £38bn is needed to significantly improve the NHS and tackle long waits by the end of this Parliament (2029/30). The upcoming Budget is a crucial opportunity for the Government to start showing how it intends to turn its ambitions into reality.’
On the NHS performance figures, Professor Sir Stephen Powis, NHS national medical director, said: ‘These latest figures show the pressure we saw over summer is not letting up with too many patients waiting too long for treatment, following a record September for A&E attendances and 1.2 million more attendances so far this year than before the pandemic.
‘We know this is likely to be another incredibly busy winter, with extra demand and the threat of a ‘tripledemic’ of Covid, flu and RSV, and last month we set out our winter plan which included better data reporting and more care in the community like falls services and virtual wards, so we can see patients as quickly as possible in the busy months ahead.’
Statistics were also released on how many patients (3.8 million) were able to access mental heath services over 2023/24, which was up by almost two fifths since before the pandemic.
Minister for mental health, Baroness Merron, said she was ‘pleased’ to see more people able to access services, but that ‘too many people are struggling’ which is made worse by long waiting lists.
‘We’re committed to giving mental health the attention and focus it needs by recruiting an additional 8,500 mental health workers across child and adult services to reduce delays and provide faster treatment,’ she said.
‘By providing early intervention in every school and local community, we will take action to stamp out the root causes of mental-ill health and turn the tide on these distressing statistics.’
Last week it was revealed that those waiting for planned trauma and orthopaedics and ear, nose and throat services are facing the longest waiting lists in the NHS system.
