NHS Activity Tracker: April 2026

On the second Thursday of the month (or the third if there are bank holidays), 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. 

As with the last few months, the most recent data shows high levels of demand across multiple sectors: there were a record breaking 2.43 million A&E attendances in March, the ambulance service saw the busiest March on record for ambulance incidents, and the waiting list for diagnostic testing was at a record high. However, this data also showed positives: 77.1% of A&E patients were seen within four hours despite the high levels of demand, category 2 ambulances had the fastest response times seen in almost five years, and 2.39 million diagnostic tests were carried out this month, which is the highest number of tests carried out in a February since records began. 

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

Key points

• A&E: There were a record breaking 2.43 million A&E attendances in March 2026. This is the highest figure since records began in August 2010. Despite this, 77.1% of patients were seen within four hours, which is the best performance since July 2021. 
  
  
• Ambulance: There were 811,827 ambulance incidents in March, which is the highest March figure since records began. The average response time for category 1 calls was seven minutes and 46 seconds, and for category 2 calls it was 28 minutes and 18 seconds. This is the fastest that category 2 response times have been in almost five years. 
  
  
• Cancer: Performance against the 28-day standard is consistent with last year (80.5%) and met the target set out in the 2025/26 planning guidance (80%). The 31-day and 62-day targets are both performing slightly better than last year but have not met their targets.
  
  
• Diagnostics: 2.39 million diagnostic tests were carried out this month. This is the highest number of tests carried out in a February since records began. The waiting list reached 1.86 million, which the highest it has been since records began in January 2006. 
  
  
• Elective waiting list: The size of the waiting list decreased to 7.22 million in February, compared with 7.25 million in January. This is notably lower than the 7.40 million in February 2025, but the list remains significantly higher than before the pandemic (4.57 million in February 2020). Waits within 18 weeks were equivalent to 62.6% of all the total, compared with 59.2% in February 2025. Further progress is needed to meet the planning guidance aim for 65% of treatments to be waiting no longer than 18 weeks by March 2026. 
  
  
• Community: 1.17 million people were waiting for community services in February, compared with 1.07 million in February 2025. 26.1% of all CYP on the community waiting list have been waiting 52 weeks or more, compared with 1.2% of the adult waiting list.
  
  
• Mental health: 2.19 million people were in contact with mental health services at the end of February 2026. In the 12 months to February 2026, 875,531 CYP accessed mental health services. This is the highest figure since records began.