NHS Activity Tracker: March 2026

On the second Thursday of the month, NHS England publish data relating to demand, activity, waiting times and national performance against constitutional standards and recovery targets across the secondary care sector. Each month, we'll take a more detailed look at national and trust level data across the acute, ambulance, community and mental health sectors. Over the winter months, we also take a look at winter pressures in our Winter section. 

The most recent data shows high levels of demand across multiple sectors: the ambulance service saw the busiest February on record for ambulance incidents, mental health services saw record levels of people in contact with services, and the waiting list for diagnostic testing was at a record high. However, this data also showed positives: falling virus levels, a decrease in the elective waiting list and record numbers of diagnostic tests taking place for January.  

Please note that these are national averages and there is considerable regional variation in these metrics. 

Key points

• A&E: There were 1.12 million A&E attendances in February, compared with 2.09 in February 2025. 74.1% of patients were seen within four hours, which is the highest February figure since 2022. 
  
  
• Ambulance: There were 737,526 ambulance incidents in February, which is the highest February figure since records began. The average response time for category 1 calls was seven minutes and 50 seconds, and for category 2 calls it was 28 minutes and 57 seconds.
  
  
• Winter: Data from the winter sitrep up to the first week of January shows that virus levels are decreasing, but bed occupancy remains high, exceeding both NICE and NHS planning guidance targets.
  
  
• Cancer: Performance against the 28-day standard is lower than last year (72.8% vs 73.4%). However, the 31-day and 62-day targets are both performing slightly better than last year. 
  
  
• Diagnostics: 2.53 million diagnostic tests were carried out this month. This is the highest number of tests carried out in a January since records began. The waiting list reached 1.81 million, which the highest it has been since records began in January 2006.
  
  
• Elective waiting list: The size of the waiting list decreased to 7.25 million in January, compared with 7.29 million in December. This is notably lower than the 7.43 million in January 2025, but the list remains significantly higher than before the pandemic (4.57 million in January 2020). 1.57 million cases were managed on the waiting list this month, but the demand for elective care continued to outpace activity (1.79 million cases added to the list). 
  
  
• Community: 1.14 million people were waiting for community services in January, compared with 1.06 million in January 2025. 26.1% of all CYP on the community waiting list have been waiting 52 weeks or more, compared with 1.1% of the adult waiting list.
  
  
• Mental health: 2.24 million people were in contact with mental health services at the end of January 2026. This is the highest figure since records began. In the 12 months to January 2026, 870,059 CYP accessed mental health services. This is also the highest figure since records began.