NHS England’s (NHSE) latest data indicates that, despite record demand on staff, performance has been improved in a number of key areas.
For the first time, the health service exceeded its faster cancer diagnosis target in February with nearly four in five (78.1%) people getting an all-clear or diagnosis within four weeks.
Monthly data shows that March was the busiest month ever for emergency departments with 2.35 million attendances, nearly 8.6% higher than the same month last year. There were also more than 560,000 admissions in March – 6.6% higher than March 2023.
The year up to March 2023 represents the busiest ever year for emergency departments with 26.2 million patients presenting, which is a 5.7% increase on the 12 months up to March 2019.
Overall NHS waiting lists have decreased by almost 200,000 since September.
— Department of Health and Social Care (@DHSCgovuk) April 11, 2024
⬇️ This is the biggest 5-month fall in over 10 years outside the pandemic ⬇️
Made possible by the hard work of NHS staff, who are helping us make access to care faster, simpler and fairer for patients. pic.twitter.com/Q11vf925Mv
In spite of the pressure, almost a quarter (74.2%) of patients spent less than four hours in emergency departments last month, which is better than last March’s 71.5% figure.
Ambulance response times improved across all categories even though demand was more intense, compared to last year.
February saw 6.29 million patients make up a 7.54 million-long waiting list and 1.48 million treatments get delivered, which is 9% more than the same month prior to the pandemic.
NHSE says that, given community paediatric waits were moved to a different dataset, the overall waiting list remained stable in February, following four consecutive months of drops.
By the end of February, the number of patients waiting 65+ weeks for treatment stood at just over 75,000 (down 19% from January), with most of these patients being concentrated at a small number of trusts.
The number of diagnostic tests delivered was a record for a February too, with 2.24 million tests, checks and scans overall.
NHSE’s national medical director, Professor Sir Stephen Powis, said: “Today’s data demonstrates once again how the NHS is working flat out to recover services and bring down waiting times for patients, despite enormous demand on services”.
He added that “there is further to go and our ambitious recovery work continues, but it is clear the NHS is treating more patients more quickly”.
Image credit: iStock
