A&E visits top two million in July

The number of patients attending A&E in England is at its second-highest monthly level on record, new figures reveal.

There were some 2,075,939 A&E visits in July, a 6.3% rise compared with the same period last year, NHS England figures show.

It is only the third time that the figure has topped two million since records began in 2010.

Emergency admissions in July were the third highest monthly figure on record, the data shows.

A total of 490,221 cases were admitted during the month, a 3.4% rise compared with the same period last year.

The figures come as a new report by think-tank The King's Fund highlighted that hospitals in England are busier than ever before.

The Quarterly Monitoring Report states that the number of people attending A&E soared to nearly six million during the first quarter of 2016/17.

This means there were an additional 54,000 attendances every month at A&E departments compared with the same time last year, the authors said.