Patients are finding it easier to get a GP appointment, but this is putting more pressure on hospitals, the head of the NHS has said. Sir Jim Mackey, chief executive of NHS England, told MPs that hospitals are struggling with surging demand for beds because access to GPs has finally improved under Labour.
Health leaders were giving evidence before the Public Accounts Committee after a summer of an unprecedented rise in demand. Sir Jim said demand for urgent hospital appointments was up 6% this September compared to the same month last year.
Demand linked to better primary care
Sir Jim said: “This is pretty significant when you're on fine margins. We've also had a significant growth in elective demand this year as well which we're struggling with. We think it's related to better access to primary care. So patients being more able to see a GP… and as a result more patients flowing on into hospital care. But we can't say for definite what it is. It's pretty consistent and I think we should assume [the increased demand] is here for the long term.”
NHS England is still trying to work out exactly why demand for hospital appointments has surged this year, Sir Jim added: “The main thing that set us off course has been quite a strange increase in demand from the early part of the year which we're still struggling with.”
Decline in primary care reversed
Tory governments oversaw a fall of almost 3% in full-time-equivalent GPs in England between 2015 and 2022. At the same time, the number of patients per GP increased by 9% while total demand, as measured by total chronic conditions, rose by 32%.
GP appointments became much harder to come by and were shorter. NHS bosses believe this decline in primary care is finally being reversed, but it means more people are getting referred to hospitals to deal with health problems they previously struggled with.
Corridor care and long waits
The committee heard how the proportion of patients waiting in A&E for 12 hours or more has tripled from around 3% before Covid-19 to around 10% in 2025-26. Corridor care became widespread in the NHS after the pandemic and sees patients treated in non-clinical spaces such as corridors, offices and walk-in cupboards.
The Mirror previously revealed the practice was quietly approved across the health system to get ambulances queuing outside A&Es back on the road quicker. Labour has vowed to phase out corridor care.
Dr Emma Rowland, director of performance at NHS England, said: “Our focus is absolutely on eliminating and abolishing all those long waits. All of those patients that are currently in a corridor should be in a hospital bed. That's the bottom line.”
Official NHS standards state that A&E departments should discharge, transfer or admit 95% of patients into a ward bed within four hours. This target has not been met since 2013-14. Though performance has improved over recent years, in 2025-26 this target was only met for 74.9% of A&E attendances.
