Ambulances handed over patients more than 2 minutes faster last month despite facing their busiest January since before COVID-19. Provisional figures show there were 420,324 ambulances handovers with known times in January, the highest number for the month since 2020 and a 5.2% increase compared to 399,415 in January last year.
Despite this, the average handover time this January (37:16) was more than 2 minutes faster than January 2025 (39:27) and last week’s average time was almost 5 minutes (4:42) faster than the same week last year. The government says that improvement in performance amid high demand is a sign of the positive impact of NHS planning and preparation for winter, as services focused on keeping more ambulances on the road and improving patient flow through hospitals.
Winter viruses continue to add to demand in hospitals with more than 1,000 (1,093) adult beds on average closed or occupied each day last week due to norovirus. There were also still more than 900 patients (904) on average in hospital each day last week with the bug. There were also almost 4,000 more calls (3,878) received by NHS 111 services (381,479) compared to the same week last year (377,601). Flu rates continue to drop since last month’s peak, but there was still an average of almost 1,500 (1,491) patients in hospital with flu and an average of 630 patients in hospital with COVID-19 per day last week.
Vaccination data shows 18.8 million flu vaccines have been delivered since the autumn/winter campaign began – around half a million more than at the same point last year, helping to keep more people out of hospital and protected against getting seriously ill from the virus.
NHS National Medical Director Professor Meghana Pandit said: “Early NHS preparation and planning for winter is paying off for patients. Patients are being handed over from ambulances quicker, even amid high demand on services – with more handovers last month than any January since before the pandemic.
“Higher vaccination rates are helping to limit the impact of winter viruses like flu, though cases of the vomiting bug are still high in hospitals, which staff are working extremely hard to keep under control."
Health and Social Care Secretary Wes Streeting said: “By planning for winter earlier than ever before, we’re now seeing real improvements in urgent and emergency care. Ambulance response times and handovers are faster, the longest A&E delays are falling compared to last year, and flu is taking up fewer hospital beds.
“We backed this with £450 million for urgent and emergency care, 500 new ambulances on the road, and millions of flu, COVID-19 and RSV vaccinations to keep people well and out of hospital.
“Winter pressures haven’t disappeared, but we’re learning from this season to strengthen our response further and break the cycle of struggle the NHS faces each winter.”
The annoucement is contrary to a recent statement, at the end of January 2026, from the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, which criticised the fact that "a predictable surge in norovirus" had plunged Emergency Departments further into crisis "because of a failure to prepare for winter".
A winter situation report that covered the week ending 25 January showed that bed occupancy in English hospitals remained dangerously high, at 94.6%, while more than 14,000 people medically fit to be discharged from hospital were still stuck in beds. On a given day, there were on average 50,368 patients who had been in a hospital bed for seven days or longer, showing problems lie at the ‘back door’ of hospitals, the Royal College of Emergency Medicine asserted.
It added that there had been a total of 343 emergency department diverts across this winter so far – a far higher rate than recent years.Typically, a patient is only diverted to a different department as a last resort, often because one ED is completely overwhelmed.
Dr. Ian Higginson, RCEM President, said: “None of the pressures we are facing this winter were unexpected or surprising, and yet we are at breaking point. We are not being overwhelmed by unprecedented numbers of patients arriving in hospitals. It’s simple: not enough has been done to tackle exit block in hospitals, where patients who are medically fit to leave a bed are not discharged, through no fault of their own.
“Social care, and wrap-around services, which allow for timely discharges are in desperate need of support and resources. The consequence of this is patients lining the corridors of EDs in unacceptable conditions because there are no beds in wards for them to be admitted to. When this happens, they don’t get better: they get sicker.
“Congestion in the hospital system means we are simply not ready for surges in norovirus, flu or major incidents – which we know can and will happen, particularly in winter. A failure to prepare properly is to prepare for failure, and that is exactly what happened ahead of this winter. We acknowledge the efforts made by NHS England, but these stats make clear it hasn’t been enough."
