The NHS will enter winter with limited room to recover after the busiest summer on record, officials and clinicians warned, leaving frontline services stretched and routine care backlogs rising. Emergency departments recorded almost 7.3m attendances across June, July and August, roughly 1m more than the same three months in 2022 when 6.4m visits were logged. During the same period ambulance services handled about 2.4m callouts, adding pressure to hospital arrivals and transport capacity.
The operational squeeze showed in the waiting list for routine hospital treatment in England, which climbed to an estimated 7.33m treatments at the end of July, covering 6.21 million patients. That figure rose from 7.27m treatments and 6.15 million patients at the end of June, and represents the largest total since October 2025, when 7.40m treatments relating to 6.24 million patients were on the list.
Long waits increased too. At the end of July, 111,379 people had been waiting more than a year for routine care, up from 105,711 at the end of June. Performance against the referral-to-treatment standard eased slightly: 65.4% of patients started hospital treatment within 18 weeks in July, down from 65.8% in June but still above the 65% threshold set for March. Labour’s pledge of a 92% 18-week target by July 2029 is already facing scepticism from surgical leaders. “Our analysis shows that, if the pace of improvement seen over the last two years continues, no region in England will restore the 18-week standard by 2029,” said Prof Frank Smith of the Royal College of Surgeons of England.
Pressure on patient flow was visible in corridor care data for August, which showed an average of 2,973 patients a day receiving treatment in corridors across England, split between 2,296 in A&E departments and 677 elsewhere in hospitals. Clinicians linked the spike in demand to extreme heat and urged policy change to reduce seasonal surges.
Sarah Woolnough, chief executive of the King’s Fund, said the service faces a “dual seasonal crisis” and called on ministers to prioritise climate resilience and prevention. Dr Vicky Price, president of the Society for Acute Medicine, described teams working under relentless pressure and warned that staff goodwill cannot substitute for unresolved structural problems.
Health secretary Yvette Cooper paid tribute to NHS staff and said ministers are backing the service with record investment and plans to support it through both summer and winter pressure. With the colder months still ahead, NHS leaders and clinicians say the immediate challenge is sustaining urgent care while finding the capacity and funding to chip away at the backlog over coming seasons.
