There has been a sharp rise in people facing long waits in A&E, although the overall NHS waiting list continues to fall, figures show.
An estimated 7.60 million treatments were waiting to be carried out in England at the end of December, relating to 6.37 million patients, down slightly from 7.61 million treatments and 6.39 million patients at the end of November.
But hospitals were clearly under pressure as winter took hold, with the number of people waiting more than 12 hours in A&E departments from a decision to admit them to actually being admitted hitting 54,308 in January, up sharply from 44,045 in December.
This is the second highest figure on record, just below the record 54,573 in December 2022.
The number of people waiting at least four hours from the decision to admit to admission has also risen, from 148,282 in December to 158,721 last month – again, the second highest figure on record.
NHS England said A&E and ambulance services experienced their busiest ever January.
It said there were 2.23 million A&E attendances, with more than a 10% increase in emergency admissions from A&E, compared to the same month last year.
Junior doctors in England staged the longest strike in NHS history in January, for six full days from January 3 to January 9.
