A&E in England has busiest summer ever with 4.6m visits in two months

The NHS in England has had its busiest summer ever in A&E with 4.6m attendances over the past two months, while 1.5m hospital appointments were rescheduled because of the junior doctors’ strikes, according to the latest figures.

The three busiest months for A&E staff in history have been in 2024, with 77,945 attendances a day in May, 76,469 in June and 74,459 in March.

The surge in demand came at a time when the NHS was hampered by industrial action. Junior doctors were on strike between 27 June and 2 July, which led to 61,989 acute appointments needing to be rescheduled. As a result, nearly 1.5m appointments have been affected since the start of the dispute.

Meanwhile, the overall hospital waiting list for elective care, which refers to non-urgent services such as hospital scans and diagnostics, rose again in June to 7.62m – an increase of 19,100 compared with the previous month.

Prof Stephen Powis, the NHS national medical director, said: “A&E staff are under significant pressure and the NHS is in the middle of what could be its busiest summer ever, with a total of 4.6m attendances in the last two months alone and 2024 now having seen the three busiest months for A&E on record.

“While we have seen improvements in the number of patients seen and treated within four hours in A&E, slightly faster ambulance response times and more than three-quarters of cancer patients receiving an all-clear or diagnosis in four weeks, it is clear that waits for patients across a range of services remain unacceptable and there is much more to do to deliver more timely care for those who need it."

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Source: The Guardian, 8 August 2024