The overall backlog grew by 18,751 to 7.42m in March, according to NHS England.
In better news, progress the number of patients waiting over 18, 52 and 55 weeks fell and over 100,000 more treatments were delivered.
The 28-day cancer target continued to be met with over 200,000 (217,366) given the all clear or a definitive cancer diagnosis within four weeks – over 16,000 more compared to the same month last year (8% increase).
A&E attendances reached a record level of over 2.3m in April, however, a record for the month.
Sarah Scobie, deputy director of research at the Nuffield Trust, said emergency care should not be sacrificed at the cost of a focus on the overall waiting list.
Over 25% of people were waiting more than four hours in A&E in April and nearly 45,000 people waited over 12 hours on a trolley because hospital beds were unavailable, she noted.
Noting progress on the overall waiting list had stalled, Scobie said: ‘The Government is hoping that initiatives like expanding use of Advice and Guidance in general practice will help, so a big question as ministers prepare the 10-Year Health Plan is whether things will get back on track with driving down the backlog.'
Francesca Cavallaro, senior analytical manager at The Health Foundation, said: ‘These latest statistics are a reminder that patients and NHS staff continue to bear the consequences of the strain on NHS services.'
Professor Sir Stephen Powis, NHS England's national medical director, said: ‘The scale of demand that our frontline NHS teams are managing is enormous - today's figures show that each month, they are having to not only deal with an historic backlog, but they are also working to keep up with the hundreds of thousands of new patients that need our care.'
Health and social care secretary, Wes Streeting, said: ‘Since day one, we have been clear it will take time to reverse the disastrous waiting list we inherited. But since July, real progress has been made – including over winter. We have overseen a massive increase in appointments available to meet rising demand, reduced long waits and helped people get diagnosed quicker. ‘
