NHS Records Busiest Ever A&E Month with 2.43 Million Attendances in March 2026
NHS England has described March 2026 as its busiest month ever for accident and emergency services, with a record 2.43 million attendances, as the health service continues to grapple with an elective care waiting list of 7.25 million patients.
Background
The National Health Service has been operating under extreme pressure for several years, with demand for services consistently outpacing capacity. The elective care waiting list, which peaked at 7.7 million, has seen only modest reductions despite significant government investment and reform efforts. Urgent and emergency care services have been particularly stretched, with A&E departments across England regularly failing to meet the four-hour waiting time target.
Key Developments
NHS England confirmed that March 2026 was its busiest ever month for A&E, with a record 2.43 million attendances. Despite this unprecedented demand, over 38% of patients still waited longer than the four-hour target. Average ambulance response times for serious conditions such as strokes and heart attacks, while meeting the relaxed 2026/27 target, remained well above the constitutional standard of 18 minutes.
The elective care waiting list currently stands at 7.25 million, according to a comprehensive report from Wecovr. Although this represents a slight reduction from the peak of 7.7 million, the national target of treating 92% of patients within 18 weeks has not been achieved since 2016. The NHS is also advancing new treatments, with millions of older individuals now eligible for a newly available RSV vaccine, and semaglutide (Wegovy) expected to be available for 1.2 million people with cardiovascular disease within months.
Why It Matters
The record A&E figures are a stark indicator of the scale of demand facing the NHS and the gap between current performance and the standards patients are entitled to expect. For the millions of people who attended A&E in March, the experience of long waits in overcrowded departments has real consequences for health outcomes, particularly for those with time-sensitive conditions.
The persistence of the 7.25 million waiting list also means that millions of people are living with untreated conditions, often in pain and unable to work, with significant knock-on effects for the wider economy and social fabric.
What's Next
The government has set ambitious targets for reducing waiting times and improving A&E performance in 2026/27. The rollout of the NHS App and the AI-enabled Federated Data Platform are expected to improve efficiency, but many health leaders warn that without significant additional investment and workforce expansion, the targets will be extremely difficult to meet. Further details are available at NHS England.
