27 March 2025
When will the waiting end? That is the question being posed by the Royal College of Emergency Medicine as new data shows the winter crisis in England’s A&Es continues.
Persistently high levels of norovirus cases and high numbers of people remaining in hospital although well enough to leave mean that pressure remains high in Emergency Departments despite ‘spring’ having arrived.
The data from NHSE’s winter sit-reps series released today 27 March 2025, and which covers the week 17 March to 23 March 2025 show for all Trust types, more than 900 people in England were hospitalised because of norovirus – also known and the winter vomiting bug.
That is just 157 fewer than when the illnesses peaked in February. And the number of people needing inpatient care for flu also remained high with more than a thousand (1,044) people in hospital last week with the illness, down just 130 from the previous week.
Hospital occupancy remains dangerously high with more than nine out of 10 beds (94%) occupied. The safe level is considered to be 85% and more than 10,000 beds would need to be made available for this level to be hit – something which hasn’t happened since during the pandemic.
Of those beds, 13,388 were occupied by people who were considered by clinicians to be well enough to leave – often unable to because vital social care support in not available.
Responding to today’s data, President of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine Dr Adrian Boyle, said: “Yesterday the Chancellor revealed what has been described as an ‘Emergency Budget, but despite the Health Secretary promising to end the inevitable annual A&E crisis the only mention of healthcare was again relating to reducing elective waiting lists.
“While this is an important and admirable aim – the Government cannot just look at one element in isolation, plough resources into it, and then claim to have fixed things while other equally important parts of the system remain in ‘permacrisis’, and patients at significant risk.
“Emergency Departments are on their knees hoping for some respite from perennial winter crises. But even when the extreme pressure abates the constantly high demand persists.
“As hospitals continue to run almost at capacity, and people who are well enough to leave but – can’t often because of issues with social care – there is little evidence of the ‘change’ so vehemently promised by the Government.
“We await any review of UEC this past winter, we await the Urgent and Emergency Care Transformation Plan, we await a strategy to address the issues which causes these crises, and we await the NHS 10 Year plan.
“And while we wait, so do our patients – to get out of ambulances into our departments, to get admitted to a bed if they need one, and to go home again when they are well enough.
“When will the waiting end?”
See the visual representation of this year’s and previous years’ data.
