Britain: Record 50,000 Patients A Week Face 12-hour A&E Waits

By Staff, Agencies

The Independent British daily revealed that “The number of patients waiting more than 12 hours in A&E for treatment has exceeded 50,000 a week for the first time.”

Leaked NHS data shows that last month as many as one in eight patients faced a “trolley wait” – the time between attending A&E and being admitted – longer than 12 hours, as the health service comes under ever greater strain.

The Independent previously revealed that the number of deaths linked to long delays for emergency treatment had risen to as many as 500 per week by October, when more than 30,000 patients a week were waiting 12 hours or more.

On Wednesday, the crisis will be exacerbated further as 25,000 ambulance staff – including 999-service call handlers – are set to strike. Healthcare leaders said they fear this round of strikes will hit services even harder than those before Christmas.

Sources across the country told The Independent that hospitals are having to “squeeze” patients into spaces other than normal wards or A&E, with no direct oxygen lines. Meanwhile patients wait for hours in ambulances outside emergency departments.

Shadow health secretary Wes Streeting said: “It is unsafe and unacceptable to leave patients waiting so long for emergency care. The record long waiting times are having terrible consequences for patients.”

An academic study published last year estimated that, for every 72 patients waiting between 8 and 12 hours in A&E, one additional death is likely to occur.

Data released by the Office for National Statistics on Tuesday showed that there were 1,119 “excess deaths” – the number of people who died above the average over the last five years – in the last week of 2022, excluding those with COVID. In 2021 and 2020, non-COVID deaths were below the five-year average.