NHS winter pressures 2026: terms, policy and funding explained
The NHS is going into winter after the busiest summer in its history. Heatwaves sent record numbers of people to A&E, with almost 7.3 million attendances between June and August.
The Health and Social Care Secretary, Yvette Cooper, has said this winter will be more challenging than usual after such a heavy summer. The King's Fund has warned that this leaves little time for staff and services to recover before winter demand starts.
What do we mean by winter pressures?
Winter pressures are the extra demands on health and care services in the colder months.
The term is also used for funding: money to help services add capacity for those months.
Why winter puts pressure on the NHS
Viruses spread more. Flu, norovirus, RSV and Covid spread more easily when people are indoors together.
Cold affects older and frail people more. Heart and lung conditions get worse, and ice brings more falls.
Beds stay full. Patients waiting for care at home or in a care home cannot leave hospital, so A&E backs up.
Discharge to assess adds to the load. Discharge to assess runs all year round. It moves patients who no longer need hospital care (often described as medically fit for discharge) to their home or a community setting with short-term support, before their longer-term care needs are assessed. In winter, this frees up hospital beds, but it can shift work onto general practice at an already busy time. A 2018 study in the British Journal of General Practice looked at 300 hospital discharge summaries for patients aged 75 and over, and found that 246 asked the GP practice to do at least one thing.
Staff become unwell too. Sickness cuts capacity when demand is highest.
Christmas and New Year. Fewer services are open, and fewer patients are discharged, so early January is often one of the hardest points.
The winter pressures terms you will hear
The infographic below explains the terms that come up most in winter planning, the news and the data.
What the winter pressures policy says
NHS England's winter planning letter in July 2026 asked every area to have a winter plan signed off by its board by 30 September.
ICBs must commission enough capacity, including same-day GP appointments, enhanced access and community pharmacy.
Trusts must treat ending corridor care as a patient safety priority.
Where the winter pressures money is going
On 18 October, the government announced almost £140 million for 14 urgent care schemes in England. All 14 are in hospitals or ambulance services, such as new urgent treatment centres, A&E upgrades and extra ambulances.
None of this money goes to general practice. Instead, the announcement points to two things: the expanded Pharmacy First scheme, which lets community pharmacists treat more common conditions, and extra GP appointments in the evenings, at weekends and out of hours over the colder months. It does not say how these will be funded.
Where things stand
NHS England's figures for September show:
50,582 people waited more than 12 hours from a decision to admit to being admitted, up from 44,951 in August.
74.4% of A&E patients were seen within four hours, down from 75.0% in August.
The weather and the economy
Weather: the Met Office long-range outlook leans mild and wet, with the greatest chance of cold weather late in the winter.
Budget: the Autumn Budget on 28 October added £190 million for the NHS in England to manage pressures over winter. It did not name any money for general practice.
Inflation: the Office for National Statistics reports inflation at 3.5% in the 12 months to September, up from 3.1% in August.
Energy: Ofgem's price cap rose by 4% on 1 October, to £1,723 a year for a typical household, and the January figure is due by 25 November. Households in council tax bands A to D in England will get a £100 Household Energy Payment from January, and VAT on electricity stays at 0% until July 2027.
Winter pressures by another name, and unspent ARRS
I spoke with a leader recently who said some areas feel they get no winter pressures funding. In practice, they did get support; it is just called something different.
That matches what I see in my patch. On the Isle of Wight, we do not have winter pressures funding. We do have a GP resilience scheme, funded for three years, which supports same-day access, proactive care and home visiting.
The scheme runs all year round with no monthly targets. That gives us the discretion to put more resources in when we need it most, and winter is one of those times.
The Isle of Wight is not typical, so I would not generalise from it.
If you have room in your ARRS (Additional Roles Reimbursement Scheme) budget, now is the time to boost capacity for winter through direct recruitment or through providers such as Medacy Clinical Services for clinical pharmacists and Pure Unity Health for First Contact Physiotherapy support, women's health and long-term condition management.
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Contact admin@thcprimarycare.co.uk to discuss the support you may need.
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