Long A&E stays: NHSE must focus on the most dangerous waits

Thursday 10 September 2024

As winter looms, and with many Emergency Departments already experiencing unsustainable pressure, the Royal College of Emergency Medicine has urged NHSE to focus on reducing the longest and most dangerous A&E waits.

The call comes as the latest Emergency Department figures for England have been published today (10 October 2024). Published by NHS England and covering September 2024 the figures reveal that last month:

There were 2,214,217 attendances in Emergency Departments in England, an increase of 2.5% compared to last month and a 2.2% increase compared to September 2023. This is the highest September attendance on record.
Of these 1,364,482 were people who visited a major A&Es (referred to as Type-1 EDs)
129,012 patients waited 12 hours or more from their time of arrival in Type-1 EDs. This is an increase of 16.2% compared to the previous month, and an increase of 4% compared to September 2023.
Of these, almost 39,000 patients waited more than 12 hours AFTER the decision was made that they needed to be admitted (known as ‘trolley waits’) which is a third more than in August.

September’s data comes after the busiest summer every recorded in Emergency Departments, and just this week several A&Es have taken to social media to ask people to only attend if it is an emergency.

Dr Adrian Boyle, President of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine said: “We are on the cusp of winter and we already have Emergency Departments publicly indicating they are unable to cope with the pressure they are experiencing now.

“Just imagine what it will be like when we are in the depths of the cold weather with flu, Covid and RSV cases rocketing. Everything is pointing to the perfect storm, resulting in the most challenging winter yet.

“Our members and their colleagues are battered, bruised and tired of battling the system, but it is our patients who are most at risk. We have urged NHSE and the DHSC to focus on tackling 12-hour waits as we know they pose the greatest risk.

“But as yet these calls have gone unheeded. Last year the deaths of 14,000 people were associated with long waits in A&E. Surely, we should all be doing everything we can to reduce that number?

“At the end of the month we will have the Government’s budget and with it the clear indication of what it is prioritising for investment. If it really wants to ‘fix what is broken’ it must commit to the level of sustained funding which is needed to #ResusciateEmergencyCare, improve the flow of patients through the system, and ultimately save thousands of lives each year.”