The number of people waiting to start routine hospital treatment in England has reached a record high.
In all, 7 million patients were waiting to start treatment at the end of August, NHS England said.
This is up from 6.8 million in July and is the highest number since records began in August 2007.
It was also revealed total of 387,257 people in England had been waiting more than a year to start hospital treatment at the end of August, up from 377,689 at the end of July.
This is equivalent to one out of every 18 people on the whole waiting list.
Figures also showed that 2,646 people had bee waiting over two years to begin routine hospital treatment at the end of August, slightly down from 2,885 the previous month and markedly down from a peak of 23,778 in January this year.
NHS England had said it aimed to ensure no patients were waiting longer than two years for treatment, except in instances of complex cases or when the patient themselves chooses to delay.
Ambulance waiting times were also revealed, with the wait for calls from people with life-threatening illnesses or injuries averaging at nine minutes 19 seconds. The target for these types of incidents is seven minutes.
The average wait for ambulances to arrive in instances of non-life-threatening injuries was 47 minutes 59 seconds in September, over half an hour longer than the target time of 17 minutes.
The number of people waiting longer than 12 hours in A&E also reached a new record high of 32,776 in September, up by more than 4,000 on the previous month.
A total of 71% of patients in England were seen within the target four hours at A&E departments across England last month, level with the worst performance ever recorded.
The national target is for 95% of patients to be dealt with in under four hours, a target which has not been met since 2015.
