Emergency room crisis: Emergency room patients had to wait up to 10 days for admission and at least one patient was on a stretcher for 24 hours at almost every hospital.
Patients are having to wait up to ten days in emergency rooms before being admitted to hospital due to a severe shortage of beds, new alarming figures show.
Nearly all hospitals in England report that at least one person has been on a stretcher in the emergency department for 24 hours or more in the past year.
And ten hospitals indicated that waiting times in 2023/2024 were longer than four days, according to data released under the Government Information (Public Access) Act.
Of the 51 hospitals that responded, the longest wait for a patient last year was 230 hours and 25 minutes at Mid and South Essex NHS Foundation Trust.
The shocking revelations come just days after 62-year-old Madeline Butcher, a terminal cancer patient, was photographed lying on the floor of the emergency room at Blackpool Victoria Hospital because there was no room for her on the ward.
Madeleine Butcher, 62, who has terminal cancer, was forced to lie on the floor of the emergency room as she waited for treatment for a possible sepsis infection because she was too uncomfortable to sit on a chair in the ward at Blackpool Victoria Hospital
The NHS target is for 95 per cent of patients to be treated or admitted within four hours of arrival at A&E, but this has not been achieved in a single month since July 2015.
Last year, 466,000 patients had to wait more than 12 hours for a consultation, which is three times longer than necessary.
The Society for Acute Medicine described the long waits as a “scandal” and said the figures highlighted the “appalling situation” in emergency care, which is causing “significant harm and some premature deaths”.
The Royal College of Emergency Medicine also called long emergency department waits “dangerous” and warned they could contribute to 300 deaths a week by 2023.
Last year, approximately 4.5 million patients went to the emergency department because they could not get an appointment with their GP, putting even more pressure on emergency departments.
Meanwhile, 13,300 beds (the equivalent of 26 full hospitals) are filled with patients who are medically fit for discharge but cannot leave because care is not available in the community.
The Labour Party, which tabled the freedom of information requests, said it would ease the burden on emergency departments by training thousands of extra GPs, cutting the bureaucracy that hampers them and forcing hospitals to fund more care home beds.
Shadow Health Secretary Wes Streeting said: ’14 years of neglect by the Conservative Party has left patients lying on the floor of hospital wards waiting for days to be seen.
‘The NHS cannot continue as it is, but if the Conservatives throw in another five years, nothing will change.
‘Labour’s plan will see the front door of the NHS refurbished and hospitals partnering with social care providers so patients can book an appointment and leave hospital as soon as they are better.
‘Only Labour has a plan to reform the NHS and ensure patients get timely care again, but change can only happen if you vote for it.’
Dr Tim Cooksley, former president of the Society for Acute Medicine, said: ‘These data are further evidence of the appalling situation in emergency care.
‘These patients suffer serious harm and some die prematurely as a result.
‘This mainly concerns acute patients who belong in beds and not wasting away in undignified corridors in the emergency department or acute care unit.
‘Acute care physicians have to examine and treat these patients in the hallways, often having difficult conversations.
“This is truly a scandal and should be treated as an emergency. A sustainable plan to resolve this crisis immediately after the elections is essential.”
Dr Adrian Boyle, President of The Royal College of Emergency Medicine, said: ‘We welcome this statement of intent from the Labour Party to reduce the long waiting times in emergency departments that we know are dangerous and improve links with social care services to improve the flow of patients through hospital.
“But we won’t celebrate until we see a reduction in emergency room wait times and overcrowding. That’s what the exhausted emergency room workers and the public deserve.”
A Conservative Party spokesman said: ‘If Labour had a credible plan for the NHS they would be delivering it in Labour-run Wales.
‘Instead, waiting lists are unprecedentedly long, with patients waiting an average of eight weeks longer than patients in England.
‘A Labour supermajority gives Keir Starmer unchecked power to do exactly the same thing in England.
‘Only 130,000 people considering voting Reform or the Liberal Democrats can prevent a Labour supermajority by sticking to the plan and voting Conservative on Thursday.’