NHS crisis saw 163,000 ‘trolley waits’ of over 12 hours this winter after research showed such a delay doubles your chances of dying in the next month
A&E delays in some areas are seeing over half of patients waiting 12 hours or more before being admitted, new data shows. There were over 163,000 ‘trolley waits’ of 12 hours or more this winter according to public data collated by the House of Commons Library.
The analysis looks at how many patients waited over 12 hours in A&E after a decision to admit them to hospital. The Liberal Democrats, which obtained the data, will on Saturday call on the Government to end “corridor care” in hospitals by the end of this Parliament at the Party’s Spring Conference in Harrogate.
It comes after analysis by the Office for National Statistics found those facing such delays are twice as likely to die in the following month, compared with those who are seen promptly. This suggested more than 50,000 deaths were caused by A&E delays last year.
Lib Dem health spokesperson Helen Morgan MP will say: “Patients such as my constituent Emma, who having been diagnosed with sepsis spent 48 hours in a fit-to-sit area, and then 12 hours on a trolley in an X-ray corridor before finally being admitted, alongside a horrifying delay in the medication required to deal with her life-threatening condition. I’m glad to say Emma is recovering.
“But these horrifying stories are symptoms of what we have described in recent years as ‘winter pressure’, or occasionally even ‘winter crisis’ with hospitals full due to spikes in winter diseases such as flu, Covid, and Norovirus. Far from being an unexpected bolt-from-the-blue, this ‘winter crisis’ has become an annual event and the knock-on effect for the community is devastating.
“Patients are forced to routinely receive care in unsuitable conditions, without dignity or privacy, and compromising patient safety. And this is fast becoming the new normal.”
It comes two months after the Royal College of Nursing published a harrowing 460-page report on corridor care in the NHS, saying it is the worst it has ever been. In the landmark report testimony from 5,000 nurses laid bare the consequences of a decade of NHS under-funding with patients spending hours slowly dying on trolleys in busy corridors and a dead patient being found under a pile of coats in a waiting room.
Seven in ten nurses said they were daily delivering care in over-crowded or unsuitable places like corridors, converted cupboards, bathrooms, cloakrooms, paediatric recovery rooms with children in and even car parks – something that had previously been a temporary measure for emergencies.
The new data shows there were 163,000 trolley waits of 12 hours or more this winter, up 15% from 142,590 in the same period last year. It means one in ten patients had to wait that long to be admitted.
North Middlesex University Hospital Trust was the worst in the country with 53% of waits following a decision to admit being 12 hours or longer. This was followed by Warrington and Halton Teaching Hospitals with 49.7% and Croydon Health Service Trust with 38.4%.
Helen Morgan will say: “Almost every year, the Government has ended up announcing hundreds of millions of pounds of emergency funding to help the NHS through another winter crisis. Halfway through the winter. What if, instead of just reacting… normalising corridor care and spending money far too late… we invested, now, properly, to ensure the NHS is prepared for next winter?
“The Government has the opportunity – and the responsibility – to end corridor care, forever, to ensure patients never have to face such indignity again. This has to happen by the end of this Parliament at the very latest.
“That’s why we have called for a winter taskforce – which would begin now and work throughout the year to prevent the annual winter crisis. A £1.5bn ring-fenced fund to ensure that hospitals can prepare for the surge in patients before it happens, accessing extra beds and extra staff without resorting to corridors and cupboards.”
A spokeswoman for the Department of Health and Social Care said: “It is shocking corridor care has become a feature of our NHS following years of neglect. Despite the best efforts of staff, patients are receiving unacceptable standards of treatment.
“Thanks to staff who have worked tirelessly this winter, the worst of the pressures are over. We will now learn the lessons from the last few months and, through our forthcoming urgent and emergency care plan, make sure A&E waits are shorter and ambulances arrive sooner.”
