Number of patients waiting full day for A&E bed tops 150,000

MORE than 150,000 patients were forced to wait at least 24 hours for a bed in NHS emergency departments last year, according to new figures.

The number waiting a full day after arriving at A&E has risen tenfold since 2019.

It comes after the Royal College of Emergency Medicine (RCEM) said delays in A&E were responsible for about 14,000 deaths last year, or more than 250 each week. The figures were released under Freedom of Information laws and compiled by the Liberal Democrats.

The responses from 73 hospital trusts, about half the total, showed that 153,000 patients waited more than 24 hours in A&E before a bed could be found for them, with the true figure likely to be higher.

The data include only those patients ill enough to need a hospital bed rather than those who were seen, treated and sent home without being admitted.

The figure is up 17 per cent in a year and considerably higher than in 2019 when the equivalent figure for 24-hour waits was less than 15,000. About two thirds of the patients are over 65.

“It is appalling that so many elderly and vulnerable people are being forced to put up with these terrifying waits as our health service teeters on the brink,” Sir Ed Davey, the Liberal Democrat leader, told The Times.

“Behind each one of these figures is a story of someone waiting in pain, worried sick about getting the care they need. We desperately need more hospital beds and a long-term solution to the social care crisis to end these devastating A&E delays.”

There was variation across the country, with East Kent Hospitals faring the worst of trusts that submitted responded to the FOI, with 14,400 patients waiting more than a day.

Some of the trusts did not record any 24-hour waits while 10 said they had fewer than 100.

Dr Adrian Boyle, the president of the RCEM, said that these patients were “always people who are sick who need to be admitted to hospital. The majority are those who have general medical problems and are elderly with multiple conditions.”

He added: “We know that staying 12 hours is harmful,” Dr Boyle said. “For every 72 stays of 12 hours [in A&E], there will be one excess death. There was also a study in France showing that if people over 75 spend more than 12 hours in the emergency department, they had a 5 per cent increased risk of death in the subsequent admission.”

He told The Times the NHS was short of 10,000 beds. “The pandemic will definitely have disrupted and accelerated things but the problems were set in stone beforehand,” he said.

An NHS spokeswoman said: “Last year NHS staff contended with significant demand — 393,000 more A&E attendances and 217,000 more emergency admissions compared with 2022 — on top of unprecedented industrial action, high bed occupancy and the usual pressure caused by seasonal illness including Covid and flu.”