The NHS delivered over 100,000 more treatments in March compared to the same month last year, with a quarter of a million fewer waiting longer than 18 weeks for care.
New data published today also shows that NHS staff have carried out over 1.5 million treatments in just 1 month, and 3.6 million additional appointments since July 2024.
Despite increased demand, the NHS is continuing to make progress in reducing the longest waits, cutting the number of waits over 18, 52 and 65 weeks respectively.
The growth, thanks to the Elective care reform plan, is in addition to almost 1.8 million new referrals to the waiting list in March – an increase of 124,000 compared to the same month last year – showing that despite greater demand typical of this time of year, the NHS is delivering activity at a greater rate than last year.
As set out in the Plan for Change, the NHS and the government have set out ambitious measures to return to the 92% 18-week standard by March 2029, with today’s data showing 59.8% waiting less than 18 weeks – the highest proportion since August 2022.
Despite the overall backlog growing by 18,751 to 7.42 million, staff have delivered over 4.5 million treatments in the first 3 months of 2025.
England’s top doctor said that the figures for the first 3 months of the year show that the plan is already “bearing fruit” across England.
It was the busiest March ever for the number of tests and checks carried out for patients with community diagnostic hubs helping to deliver almost 2.5 million checks – an extra half a million diagnostic tests compared to the same month in 2019, up a quarter.
Thanks to the efforts of NHS staff, the 28-day cancer target in March continues to be met with over 200,000 (217,366) given the all clear or a definitive cancer diagnosis within 4 weeks – over 16,000 more compared to the same month last year (8% increase).
The monthly performance statistics also show that urgent and emergency care services continued to be under pressure last month, with more A&E attendances than any other April. Despite over 2 million attendances (2,295,820), April’s performance was the best it has been for 4 years.
Ambulance services also saw significant improvements in performance despite more pressure on staff for this time of year – almost three quarters of a million incidents – with category 1 calls at their fastest since May 2021 at 7:43, against an overall target of 7 minutes.
Professor Sir Stephen Powis, NHS England’s National Medical Director, said: “The scale of demand that our frontline NHS teams are managing is enormous – today’s figures show that each month, they are having to not only deal with an historic backlog, but they are also working to keep up with the hundreds of thousands of new patients that need our care.
“In March, we saw a particularly sharp rise in referrals – yet staff still managed to deliver more for patients with 100,000 more treatments delivered and thousands more getting a timely diagnosis for cancer.
“It is a good thing that more people are coming forward for care – and I would urge anyone who has health concerns to come forward and get checked out as soon as they can.
“While huge pressure on services remain, these figures show that the Elective care reform plan is bearing fruit for patients across the country with the NHS already reforming to work in new ways to deliver for patients”.
Health and Social Care Secretary Wes Streeting said: “Since day 1, we have been clear it will take time to reverse the disastrous waiting list we inherited. But since July, real progress has been made – including over winter. We have overseen a massive increase in appointments available to meet rising demand, reduced long waits and helped people get diagnosed quicker.
“Thanks to the hard work of NHS staff, we have now delivered more than 3.6 million extra appointments, helping hundreds of thousands of people get off the waiting list and get on with their lives.
“Our Plan for Change will continue to put patients first as we work to end the misery felt by millions up and down the country who have been denied the care they need for too long”.
Background
The latest NHS monthly performance statistics are available on the NHS England website.
