Thursday 8 August 2024
The government must take urgent action to increase A&E capacity ahead of winter.
This is the response from The Royal College of Emergency Medicine as hospitals reach near maximum capacity amid high summer demand.
Monthly data, released today (Thursday 8 August 2024) by NHS England, showed in July hospitals were 92.6% full, far above levels considered “safe” (85%).
Based on this dataset, 8,838 additional beds would be required to bring occupancy down to “safe” levels.
The data also showed a daily average of 22,310 patients in hospital who no longer met the criteria to reside but were unable to be discharged due to a lack of appropriate social care options, representing an increase of 613 patients compared to last year.
Dr Adrian Boyle, President of The Royal College of Emergency Medicine said: “The increase in demand this summer should be seen as a warning for the new government as we prepare for the inevitable increase in winter.
“This summer performance is worse than recent winter performance, which does not bode well. Last month, 119,409 people stayed in A&E for more than 12 hours, nearly 20% more than in December 2021 (100,836).
“The new government must stand by its promise of saving the NHS, by taking these figures as a stark warning. The current system simply cannot cope with the knock-on effects of high attendances and inadequate hospital capacity. We need urgent measures put in place to increase capacity and flow in hospitals.
“This has to happen now – until it does, government and health leaders will continue to fail patients and staff.”
