10,000 % rise in A&E patients waiting for 12 hours or more

THE number of patients languishing in A&Es for more than 12 hours has risen more than 10,000 per cent in just five years, shocking new figures reveal.

In January to March 2012, just 15 patients had to wait more than half a day in casualty departments in England before being admitted to a ward.

But that rocketed to 1,597 for the same three months in 2017, according to official statistics unearthed by the Royal College of Emergency Medicine.

Patients are kept in A&E for prolonged periods only if there is nowhere else to put them.

Last night, Dr Taj Hassan, presi dent of t he Royal College, warned t hat hospitals were ‘grinding to a halt’.

He said another 5,000 beds were needed to break the log-jam – equivalent to ten typical district generals. But under controver- sial NHS plans, managers want to cut thousands more beds, diverting some of the money saved to care for patients at home. The theory is that this will cut hospital admissions.

Dr Hassan said: ‘This huge rise in 12-hour waits is unacceptable and shows that despite planning for winter every year, we have consistently failed to do enough.

‘Over the last five years there has been a continued reduction in bed numbers, but there has been an increase in patients needing to be admitted.

‘Bed occupancy is now at 92 per cent – significantly higher than the safe level of 85 per cent.’ This had a ‘knock-on effect on waiting times’ in A&E.

‘Along with more doctors, we desperately need more beds to stop the system from grinding to a halt,’ he said.

Last night, Shadow Health Secretary Jonathan Ashworth said: ‘The Government’s underfunding of the NHS has been terrible for patients and it has created the worst waiting times on record.

‘It is astonishing that so many more people are now waiting in pain for so long in our hospitals.

‘Theresa May needs to say what action she is going to take so we don’t see these unacceptable waiting lists again this winter.’

The British Medical Association said the number of overnight hospital beds had been cut by a fifth over the past decade – despite the country’s growing and ageing population – leaving the UK with the second-lowest number of hospital beds per person in Europe.