One in 10 patients wait for more than 12 hours in A&E across England

One in 10 people had to wait more than 12 hours in hospital emergency departments in England in February, highlighting the pressures facing the NHS as it coped with a third day of strike action by junior doctors.

Official figures, published for the first time on Thursday, showed that 126,000 people out of just under 1.2mn who sought urgent medical help in February waited more than half a day after arriving at the hospital.

Previously, the NHS only published monthly data for those people waiting more than 12 hours once the decision was made to admit them to a ward. Under this measure, NHS England said the number of people waiting for more than half a day in March stood at just under 40,000, almost double the 22,500 in the same month last year.

The data was issued as the government and NHS leaders braced for the result of ballots of Royal College of Nursing and Unison members who have been voting to accept or reject a pay deal hammered out by their leaders in March.

The unions agreed to suspend strike action as nurses, ambulance staff and other NHS workers in England considered a pay offer worth 2 per cent of wages in 2022-23, with an additional bonus of at least £1,250. In 2023-24, a consolidated pay rise of 5 per cent, with a bigger increase for the lowest paid, is on the table.

One person close to the process suggested the outcome of the ballots by the two unions, which represent a large proportion of staff covered by the offer, hung in the balance and that proponents of the offer had been becoming more concerned in recent weeks. The ballots close on Friday.

Ministers are still hoping a “yes” vote will allow them to draw a line under at least one NHS dispute at a time when the battle with junior doctors, which has led to four days of industrial action this week, still shows little sign of resolution.

Meanwhile, the latest NHS data also showed that the number of patients waiting for non-urgent operations in February rose slightly on the previous month to 7.2mn. Of those, more than 40 per cent were waiting longer than 18 weeks to start hospital treatment after a referral, well short of the target requiring 92 per cent of patients to be seen within that timeframe.

Just over 362,00 patients were waiting more than a year, a drop of 4.5 per cent month-on-month, while the number of patients waiting 18 months fell by almost a third to just under 30,000.

The government had set a target for the NHS to see all patients waiting more than 18 months by the start of April. But health service leaders have said that NHS strikes since mid-December, which led to 285,000 operations and appointments being cancelled, make it highly unlikely the target will be met.

On top of those, the junior doctors’ action is expected to lead to an estimated 350,000 operations and appointments being cancelled, according to health leaders.

Miriam Deakin, director of policy and strategy at NHS Providers, which represents health trusts across England, said the latest figures showed the NHS was under “severe and unsustainable pressure”.

Professor Sir Stephen Powis, NHS England national medical director, said that, despite the number of patients seeking treatment and the impact of industrial action, staff had “progressed on key NHS priorities, with the number of people waiting the longest for elective care continuing to reduce”.