NHS Activity Tracker: August 2025

Acute

There were 2.41 million A&E attendances this month, the highest July on record and the second highest month recorded after May 2024 (2.42 million).
Despite high demand, this month saw the strongest performance against the four-hour A&E target since August 2021: over three-quarters (76.4%) of patients were seen within four hours. This falls slightly short of the planning guidance aim of 78%.

There were 559,390 emergency admissions in July, around 1% higher than last year and before the pandemic in 2019.

In July, 35,470 patients waited at least 12 hours from the decision to admit to admission. While this figure has been gradually declining each month since the January peak of 61,500, it remains over 80 times higher than pre-pandemic levels.

122,850 patients waited more than 12 hours from arrival at A&E in July. Although this number is down from a high of over 176,000 seen in January, it highlights that too many patients are facing long delays.
The UEC delivery plan outlines this as one of key areas to deliver against for winter preparedness, aiming for less than 10% of patients waiting over 12 hours in A&E. Currently waits of over 12 hours occur 8.3% of the time, but this will be a challenge to maintain over winter, based on performance in previous years.

The proportion of patients remaining in hospital at the end of each day despite no longer meeting the criteria to reside was 55.2%, slightly higher than last month but unchanged from last year.

Monthly activity across all three pathways (28-day faster diagnosis standard, 31-day and 62-day) increased from the month before. Activity was the third highest on record for the 28-day FDS pathway and the second highest on record for the 62-day pathway.
76.8% of patients with an urgent referral were told they have cancer, or it was excluded, within 28 days. This is higher than last month and last year and a further step in the right direction towards the planning guidance target of 80% by March 2026.
67.1% of referrals met the 62-day standard this month, the third consecutive monthly fall and a movement away from the planning guidance target of 75% by March 2026.

Demand for diagnostic testing remains high. In June 2025, 2.5 million diagnostic tests were carried out – the highest June figure on record.
Despite climbing activity, the waiting list for diagnostic testing has risen to the highest number ever recorded, 1.73 million, up by over 60% compared to before the pandemic.
21.3% of patients waited for longer than six weeks in June, an improvement from last year (23%) but still some way from the 1% constitutional standard.

The size of the waiting list increased slightly (+10,000) to 7.37 million in June, but it is 3% smaller than last year.
There are 6.23 million patients waiting for elective treatment in England, which means 84.6% of waiting list cases are for unique patients. There are around 2% (150,000) fewer patients waiting for treatment compared to last year.
2.83 million cases waited more than 18 weeks in June, falling by nearly 10% compared to last year.
61.5% of all waits were within 18 weeks, the highest proportion since June 2022. The planning guidance sets out an aim for 65% of treatments to be waiting no longer than 18 weeks by March 2026. 
191,810 treatments had been waiting over 52 weeks in June, down by 37% compared to last year and totalling 2.6% of all waits. The planning guidance sets out an aim for waits over a year to account for 1% of all waits by March 2026.