Thursday 18 July 2024
The Royal College of Emergency Medicine (RCEM) has called for the next First Minister of Wales to prioritise Emergency Care as people continue to suffer long waits in Welsh A&Es.
The statement comes after the resignation of First Minister Vaughan Gething on Tuesday (16 July) following a vote of no confidence from the Senedd last month and four of his ministers sensationally quitting.
Data released today (Thursday 18 July 2024) by the Welsh government show last month was the second worst June since records began in 2010 for long waits in Emergency Departments.
In this period, almost a quarter of people (24.1%) waited eight hours or longer (the highest proportion of people waiting this long recorded this year) and 14.8% waited 12 hours or longer.
These data also showed that in the last seven years, the number of people waiting 12 hours or more has quadrupled, despite a decrease in attendance.
The data also revealed just 57.3% percent of people were seen within the four hour ‘standard’ which says people attending Emergency Departments should be treated, admitted of discharged within that time.
Dr Rob Perry, RCEM’s Vice President for Wales said: “The data goes some way to illustrate the extremely challenging conditions patients and Emergency Medical staff are forced to endure as a result of extended wait times.
“It is particularly worrying as we look ahead to winter, when we see an inevitable increase in demand, that our Emergency Departments are already so stretched.
“The new First Minister must make resuscitating emergency care a top priority. We know it will not be an easy task, but we are committed to working together to improve conditions for patients and hard-working emergency care staff who are being consistently pushed to their limits. It is what the people of Wales deserve.”
Graphical representations of the data can be found here.
The full data set can be found on the RCEM Statistics page.
