Strike and snowballing flu 'double whammy' piles pressure on NHS

Latest NHS England figures show:

• Drop in waiting list of almost 16,000 in a month, down 230,000 on July 2024
• 'Category 2' ambulance responses nearly 10 minutes faster than same time last year
• Record-high A&E attendances and ambulance incidents for October
• Almost 150,000 more checks and tests done in September than previous month
• New statistics include performance of individual emergency departments

Daniel Elkeles, chief executive, NHS Providers, said:

"We face a ‘double-whammy’, a perfect storm of another damaging five-day doctors’ strike on top of snowballing flu.

"Yet another costly walkout by resident doctors will blow another big hole in NHS budgets and just pile more pressure on already stretched services. 

"Even before the strike was announced nearly two in three NHS trust leaders were concerned about the impact of industrial action, our brand-new survey reveals.  And two in three leaders expect this winter to be even tougher than the last which was the hardest that many in the NHS can remember.

"Flu's come early this year in what experts have called an 'explosion', putting more people in hospital - with cases triple what they were this time last year. Other serious illnesses are on the rise and Covid-19 hasn’t gone away.  So, we say 'get jabbed' to anyone eligible for a flu vaccination to protect yourself and others.

"Hard work by NHS staff is paying off with waiting lists down and ambulance response times to emergency calls falling too but A&Es and ambulances are stretched to the limit, with long waits up, feeling the heat from soaring demand.

"NHS trust leaders and staff right across the NHS – in hospital, community, mental health and ambulance services – are working flat out to see patients as quickly as they can and to cut waiting lists."