Waiting list for planned hospital treatment rises for second month in a row

The waiting list for planned hospital treatment in England has risen for the second month in a row, NHS figures show.

An estimated 7.40 million treatments were waiting to be carried out at the end of July, relating to 6.25 million patients, up from 7.37 million treatments and 6.23 million patients at the end of June.

Thursday’s data, published by NHS England, also shows 1,429 patients had been waiting more than 18 months to start routine treatment at the end of July, up from 1,103 in June.

A year earlier, in July 2024, the number was higher at 2,738.

There were 11,950 patients who had been waiting more than 65 weeks to start treatment, up from 10,517 the previous month. This figure stood at 50,860 in July 2024.

The Government has set an “ambitious target” to cut maximum wait times from 18 months to 18 weeks for NHS patients across England.

When it comes to cancer, 76.6% of patients urgently referred for suspected cancer were diagnosed or had the disease ruled out within 28 days in July, down slightly from 76.8% in June.

This is above the current target of 75%.

The Government and NHS England have set an additional target of March 2026 for this figure to reach 80%.

It comes as Cancer Research UK, working with the NHS, released a report showing patients with cancer are waiting longer for a diagnosis after urgent referral than people who end up with cancer ruled out.

The NHS will now publish these figures regularly.

In July this year, 53.9% of people with cancer were diagnosed within 28 days while 78.2% of those without cancer had it ruled out.

Thursday’s data also showed that the proportion of patients who had waited no longer than 62 days in July from an urgent suspected cancer referral, or consultant upgrade, to their first definitive treatment for cancer was 69.2%, up from 67.1% in June.

The Government and NHS England have set a target of March 2026 for this figure to reach 75%.

However, GPs made far more cancer referrals than before, with 305,164 urgent cancer referrals in July, a new record for a calendar month and up from 279,390 in June.

Tim Gardner, assistant director of policy at the Health Foundation, said: “The NHS waiting list often increases at this time of year, but the Government is likely to be disappointed not to have made further progress on its commitment to ending hospital backlogs.

“While the NHS was able to maintain a relatively high volume of treatment in July, which included the five-day strike by resident doctors, this is the second consecutive month the waiting list has increased.

“The latest data on urgent and emergency care for August shows a mixed picture.

“Ambulance response times improved from July, but A&E waiting times got slightly worse and the NHS overall remains a long way off from meeting national targets.

“The scale of the pressures being experienced during the summer is a cause for concern as the NHS prepares for winter.”

He said few hospitals are meeting waiting-time targets, even those that rank highly in new NHS league tables.

“The NHS needs a system-wide approach to recovery, one that prioritises investment, workforce resilience and long-term planning, rather than using the new rankings as another tool for top-down control and performance management.”

NHS England said that while the waiting list has risen, the NHS delivered more treatments than the same month last year – 1.64 million, up 2.6% on July 2024 (1.60 million).

Professor Meghana Pandit, NHS national medical director, said: “Industrial action in the NHS is never easy for patients, but despite last month’s disruption record number of cancer patients got the care they needed.

“Urgent ambulance response times were the fastest they’ve been in over four years – even as A&E and ambulance staff saw more patients in August than ever before.

“These results show the NHS is always there for patients – no matter what is thrown its way.”

Health and Social Care Secretary Wes Streeting, said: “One year ago, I made a promise that we would deliver two million extra appointments in our first year – not only did we do this in just five months, but we have obliterated that target, carrying out over five million.

“That is testament to the relentless efforts of NHS staff across the country, alongside key reforms to get waiting times down for patients.

“Our 10 year health plan will go even further, driving care out of our busy hospitals and into local communities as we deliver the radical transformation required to fix our broken health service.”

Dr Hilary Williams, clinical vice president at the Royal College of Physicians, said the figures show nearly 36,000 patients “endured” waits of more than 12 hours from the decision to admit them to hospital to their actual admission, compared with 371 in August 2019.

“Behind these numbers are thousands of individual patients left waiting or receiving care in corridors, waiting rooms and other spaces not designed for care,” she said.

“It has now been eight months since NHS England committed to recording data on care delivered in temporary spaces such as corridors, yet none of this has been published.

“Without transparency on the true scale of the problem, we cannot make progress to eliminate it.”