8 January 2026
The ease in pressure on Emergency Departments (EDs) over the festive period must be replicated throughout the year in order to get the hospital system back on track, says the Royal College of Emergency Medicine (RCEM).
Bed occupancy, delayed discharges and ambulance handover times have all degraded significantly, according to NHS England’s latest situation report, published today (8 January), which covers 29 December-4 January.
These are signs that the post-Christmas return to full hospitals has, as predicted, meant that the slight respite Emergency Departments experienced over the festive period has well and truly ended.
The figures showed that:
- Bed occupancy rose from 87.2% in the previous week to 92.2% in the week ending 4 January
- The number of beds occupied by patients medically fit to leave rose by 1,194 to 12,688 – higher than the same week in 2025
- Almost one in eight patients arriving by ambulance waited more than 60 minutes before entering an ED – a staggering increase on the previous week, where the figure sat at one in 28
- 53 patients were diverted to a different ED due to a lack of capacity – the second highest of any week since records began in winter 2017
- Staff absences and infectious diseases including flu began to rise again, after falling over Christmas
Today’s figures coincide with the release of a new report from the Health Services Safety Investigations Body (HSSIB), which highlighted the issue of so-called ‘corridor care’ having become normalised in EDs across England.
Dr Ian Higginson, RCEM President, said: “As we have repeatedly warned, the predictable return to high demand and full hospitals in our Emergency Departments after parts of the NHS shut down over the festive period means we are back to business as usual.
“Unfortunately, business as usual in winter means everything grinding to a halt, and patients bearing the brunt of it.
“Our departments are overcrowded, due to a lack of flow throughout the entire hospital system. At the back door, patients who are medically fit to leave have nowhere to go, often due to a lack of social care capacity, meaning bed occupancy has crept back up to very unsafe levels.
“This means that in EDs, some of the sickest patients are stuck unable to be admitted, often for hours, on trolleys waiting for a bed.
“A symptom of this is the unacceptably long waits that patients in ambulances faced last week. This is despite policies aimed at ensuring handovers are no longer than 45 minutes, which seek to get ambulances back on the road but often at the expense of pushing even more patients into emergency departments. We need risk spread across the system, not just at the front door. There are only so many patients we can cram in.
“Things are looking pretty dire, and we are angry that our departments have been allowed to get into this state, and that this is accepted as normal.
“NHS England aimed to drive down bed occupancy over Christmas – and this was achieved. We’ve said that beds should not just be for Christmas. We look forward to these efforts being replicated all year around, and we continue to engage with NHSE and to discuss what is possible.
“We need health service leaders, and politicians, to turn words into action to tackle the current state of EDs and for sustained improvements in flow to become a priority.”