Latest NHS England performance figures show:

• Busiest October ever for A&E departments
• Busiest month this year for most urgent ambulance call outs
• 7.7 million appointments and treatments (6.5 million people) on waiting list.

Saffron Cordery, deputy chief executive of NHS Providers, said:

"Nobody in the NHS wants patients to have long waits for the treatment they need. Hard work has reduced the longest waits for care.

"Today's facts and figures show an NHS under extreme pressure as its heads into a busy and demanding winter when services are stretched to the limit, but also an NHS which is providing care for many more people than before the pandemic, carrying out more diagnostic tests and checks and treating more cancer patients sooner.

"Trusts continue to work flat out in the face of huge demand to see more patients more quickly. But they're worried too about the long-term effects on people's health the longer they have to wait.

"Thousands of people well enough to continue recovering at or close to home are stuck in hospital largely because social care is overstretched, stemming the flow of patients from A&E and ambulance services.

"Months of industrial action hit efforts to cut waiting lists further and it's disappointing that no extra government funding is available to cover the £1bn-plus cost of strikes, meaning inevitable cuts to national health budgets.

"The NHS – right across hospital, ambulance, mental health and community services – needs more staff, more beds and more government investment in modern facilities to give patients the best possible care."

You can follow our analysis of the latest performance figures from NHS England through our NHS Activity Tracker campaign.