Pressures on A&E – new NHS performance data

With 2,345,934 people attending A&E units last December in England, the service faced their busiest month on record. 

There were some improvements in progressing the number of patients through A&E within four hours of attendance, yet this is still below the national target of 95%.

One in eight patients in major and specialty A&E departments waited for more than 12 hours, and 54,207 people waited in A&E for more than 12 hours even after a decision had been made to admit them to the hospital. 

Locally across Humber and North Yorkshire, 67.1% of all attendance in December seen in four hours or less.

Whilst it's great news for single speciality departments (100%) and other A&E/minor injury units (95.3%) when you break overall figure down, it wasn't the same for major A&E - with only 44% getting seen within four hours.

Chief Executive of Healthwatch England, Louise Ansari, said:  

“Despite record attendance in December 2024, the latest figures show that more patients progressed through A&E within four hours of attendance, 71.1%, compared to the same time last year, 69.5%. 

"However, services are still way behind reaching the national target of 95%, and there is a real risk that the interim target of 78% of patients being seen within four hours by March 2025 won’t bet met, based on current performance.

“We are very worried long waits in A&E remain the norm. 

“Pressures on A&E are having a knock-on effect on how quickly ambulances respond to calls. While life-threatening response times are similar to recent years, for emergency and non-life threatening calls, response times were the longest they’ve been since December 2022.

“Long waits for emergency care are reflected in the stories people share with us. People also tell us they wait in uncomfortable settings with little access to food, pain relief, and clean toilet facilities while the length of their waits are not well communicated to them. 

"Research shows that 14,000 extra deaths resulted from delays in the A&E in 2023.*

“Urgent action is needed to reduce the length of time people wait for emergency care. People in a health crisis deserve much better.”

*Figures from the Royal College of Emergency Medicine.