NHS activity and performance summary: October and November 2019

Unscheduled care

Average daily A&E attendances decreased since the previous month, but were the highest of any November on record. The percentage of patients spending less than 4 hours in A&E decreased from the previous month and is the lowest on record. The number of patients spending more than 12 hours in A&E increased since the previous month and is the highest on record. Average waiting times in A&E remain broadly consistent over the year.

The overall average number of daily calls to the ambulance service increased in November. The average number of daily calls of the most serious calls (‘red’) was the highest on record. The 65% target for red calls receiving a response within 8 minutes was not met for the first time since the new clinical response model was introduced.

The number of delayed transfers of care increased in November and is the highest since March 2016.

Scheduled care

The number of patients waiting longer than the target time decreased for diagnostic tests and therapy tests in October; average waiting times for therapy tests decreased, whilst average waiting times for diagnostic tests remained unchanged.

Referral to treatment performance was mixed since last month. The same percentage of patients waited less than 26 weeks. More patients waited longer than 36 weeks; the highest since January 2018. The average time waiting for treatment decreased slightly since last month and remains consistent with the trend over the year.

Over the year to October, there has been an increase in the number of patients newly diagnosed with cancer who have started treatment via the urgent suspected cancer route. But there has been a decrease in the number starting treatment not via the urgent suspected cancer route. Since last month, the percentage of patients treated within the target time for both urgent and not via the urgent route have increased. Experimental statistics for the single cancer pathway are also included in this release.