Hospital waiting lists fall but A&E has busiest October on record

The new figures are the lowest since April 2024, however, several targets were not hit, as ITV News’ Health Correspondent Rebecca Barry reports
The waiting list for routine hospital treatment in England has fallen to its lowest level in five months, new figures show, while A&E staff experienced their busiest October on record.
An estimated 7.57 million treatments were waiting to be carried out at the end of September, relating to 6.34 million patients – down from 7.64 million treatments and 6.42 million patients at the end of August, NHS England said.
These are the lowest figures since April 2024 and an improvement on September 2023, when waiting lists hit a record high.
However, several targets were missed, including the deadline to eliminate all waits of more than 65 weeks by September of this year.
This is the second time this target has not been hit.
There were still 22,903 patients who had been waiting more than 65 weeks to start treatment at the end of September.
Last week, the government outlined its ambition to ensure 92% of patients receive care within 18 weeks within the next five years.
To meet the target, it has pledged to deliver an extra two million NHS appointments a year.
Despite a fall in waiting times, A&E and ambulance staff had their busiest October on record.
The number of people attending A&E in October was 2.36 million – this is 6% more than the previous busiest October in 2023.
It was also a record October for emergency admissions, with 567,446 people being admitted.
The number of patients who were admitted, transferred or discharged within four hours of attending A&E was also below the target of 76%.
Some 73% of patients in England were seen within four hours in A&Es last month.
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A further target of 78% has been set for March 2025.
The number of people waiting more than 12 hours in A&E in England from a decision to admit to actually being admitted also increased to 49,592, up from 38,880 in September. This is the third-highest monthly figure since 2010.
Ambulance staff responded to more incidents than in any other in October, with more than three-quarters of a million incidents.
This included a record number of the most serious category 1 incidents, up more than a third on the same period before the pandemic.
The average response time for ambulances in England increased, with patients waiting much longer than the targets set.
The average response time to emergency calls such as heart attacks and strokes was 42 minutes and 15 seconds -significantly higher than the 18-minute target.
Response times for urgent calls, such as late stages of labour, non-severe burns and diabetes, averaged two hours, 41 minutes and 28 seconds in October. This is up from two hours, 12 minutes and 54 seconds in September.
On cancer referrals, some 74.8% of patients in England urgently referred for suspected cancer in September were diagnosed or had cancer ruled out within 28 days.
This is down from 75.5% the previous month and is below the target of 75%.
Health and Social Care Secretary Wes Streeting said: “It is welcome to finally see progress start to be made on the backlog. Since we ended the strikes, we have been ramping up delivery of an extra 40,000 extra appointments every week.
“The extra investment in the Budget for new surgical hubs and scanners, plus the reforms announced this week to drive up productivity, will cut waiting lists further and get patients seen faster.”
Professor Sir Stephen Powis, NHS national medical director, said: “The NHS is going into winter under more pressure and busier than ever before, with another record month for A&E and ambulance services before we even start to see a further spike of pressure caused by colder weather and the spread of winter viruses.
“While we continue to treat record numbers and deal with record demand, it is clear that is still much further to go to return performance to the levels patients should expect and we will continue to work with government on the 10 Year Health Plan to address the needs of patients.”
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