The UK emergency service has recorded its busiest summer ever, with 4.6 million visits in just two months. (Image: iStock)
The UK NHS has had its busiest summer in its history Emergencies In the last two months, 4.6 million visits were recorded, and 1.5 million hospital appointments were rescheduled due to strikes by junior doctors.
The latest figures reveal that the three busiest months for emergency staff on record have been 2024, with 77,945 daily visits in May, 76,469 in June and 74,459 in March. This surge in demand has come at a time when the NHS is already affected by strike action. Junior doctors were on strike between 27 June and 2 July.
There are currently a total of 6.39 million patients on waiting lists. By the end of June, only 58.9% had been waiting less than the constitutional standard of 18 weeks.
Speaking to the media, Professor Stephen Powis, NHS national medical director, said: “A&E staff are under significant pressure and the NHS is in the midst of what could be its busiest summer on record, with a total of 4.6 million attendances in the last two months alone and 2024 being the busiest three months on record for A&E.”
She added: “While we have seen improvements in the number of patients seen and treated within four hours in A&E, slightly quicker ambulance response times and more than three-quarters of cancer patients receiving an all-clear or diagnosis within four weeks, it is clear that waits for patients across a range of services remain unacceptable and there is much more to be done to provide more timely care to those who need it.”
Meanwhile, previous research revealed that around 19,000 NHS patients were waiting in the accident and emergency (A&E) department for three days in a 12-month period. From April 2023 to March 2024, almost 400,000 people were waiting for more than 24 hours in A&E departments. This is a 5% increase on the previous year’s figures.
The investigation exposed “the suffering and indignity endured by patients on a daily basis”. It came after an undercover journalist secretly filmed himself working as a trainee GP in the emergency department at Royal Shrewsbury Hospital for two months. The footage shows one patient waiting for around 30 hours in the waiting area. A suspected stroke patient was also present for a 24-hour period.
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