The NHS faced unprecedented summer pressure in July, recording its busiest-ever month for A&E attendances as successive heatwaves drove demand across urgent and emergency care services.
Latest NHS England figures show emergency departments handled a record 2.5 million attendances during July, with May, June and July now ranking as the three busiest months ever recorded for A&E activity. Despite the increased volume, performance improved, with 75.4% of patients seen, treated or discharged within four hours, up on June's figure.
Ambulance services were also under significant strain, responding to 829,675 incidents during the month. This was the fourth-highest monthly total on record and the second-highest outside the winter period. Meanwhile, call handlers answered 898,503 emergency 999 calls, a 6.5% increase compared with July last year.
Against this challenging backdrop, ambulance performance improved. Category 2 response times, which cover serious conditions such as strokes and heart attacks, fell by 2 minutes and 42 seconds compared with the previous month, remaining below 30 minutes despite exceptional demand.
While emergency services experienced intense pressure, the NHS reported encouraging progress in reducing treatment waits.
In June, 65.8% of patients received planned treatment within the 18-week referral-to-treatment target, representing the strongest performance since September 2021. The overall elective waiting list also fell to 7.27 million, despite a record number of patients being referred for treatment during the month.
Efforts to speed up diagnosis and treatment continue to show results. The NHS carried out more than 2.65 million diagnostic tests and checks in June, the highest monthly figure on record.
Separate productivity data also indicated a 2.6% improvement in acute sector productivity across 2025/26.
The NHS traditionally sees seasonal increases in activity during summer as people spend more time outdoors, leading to higher rates of accidents and injuries. This year, however, the impact of consecutive heatwaves has added further pressure.
Higher temperatures have been linked to increased hospital admissions resulting from greater outdoor activity, respiratory conditions aggravated by dry weather, and the worsening of existing health problems. NHS organisations have also introduced measures to improve working conditions for staff during prolonged periods of extreme heat.
Commenting on the latest performance figures, Sarah Scobie, Deputy Director of Research at the Nuffield Trust, highlighted the continuing challenges facing emergency care services.
“There has been little respite for the NHS this summer, with one heatwave following another. The Health Secretary is right to stress the need for the NHS to properly plan for how it copes with the extremes of summer like it does for winter. In July, there were a record 2.5 million A&E attendances, representing a huge amount of pressure for staff and uncomfortable waits for patients in unbearably hot conditions.
“The extra strain from soaring temperatures is piled on top of already stretched A&Es. Our analysis found that in recent months, as many as one in three patients who were admitted to hospital in an emergency waited over 12 hours between arriving in A&E and getting a hospital bed. In the latest data for July, of all patients who attended A&E, over 150,000 were stuck for more than 12 hours. The older you are, the more likely you are to have a very long wait in A&E, so some of the most vulnerable elderly patients are facing agonising delays in overheated emergency departments.”
The latest statistics underline the challenge facing health leaders as they seek to balance growing demand for urgent care with ongoing efforts to reduce elective waiting times and improve patient outcomes across the NHS.
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