13 January 2026
The Royal College of Emergency Medicine has welcomed the Liberal Democrats’ call to ensure no patient experiences extreme and dangerous wait times of 12 hours or more in Emergency Departments (EDs) across England.
The College hopes that this moment marks the meaningful start of a national policy discussion about the state of our EDs.
Announced today (13 January 2026) the Liberal Democrats have revealed a £1.5 billion plan to end long waits for a hospital bed by making 6,000 extra hospital beds available.
The political party has also called for a new legal right for patients to be admitted, discharged or transferred within 12 hours, and a duty on ministers and the NHS to deliver it.
An operational standard would be made within the NHS Constitution – like the current four-hour standard.
Dr Ian Higginson, President of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine said: “We welcome the focus, attention and commitment to addressing the current and shameful state of Emergency Departments in this country.
“These policy proposals from the Liberal Democrats focus on the issues at the ‘back door’ of our hospitals which manifest themselves inside our EDs. This is where the focus should be. When there are no beds, we can’t move our patients from our departments and into wards, causing them to be stuck for hours, and sometimes, days, for a bed to become available.
“And these waits would likely to be endured on a trolley in a corridor, or another inappropriate space. No one wants to be receiving care like this, and our clinicians certainly don’t want to be delivering care like this.
“RCEM’s been encouraging all parliamentarians across the UK to tackle corridor care with urgency. They all would’ve received a festive card from me last month, featuring patients lined up on trolleys in front of the benches in the House of Commons. Only action in the corridors of power can end this dangerous practice.
“Following Wes Streeting’s commitment to end corridor care by 2029, we hope the Liberal Democrats’ policy announcement today is the start of a meaningful political discussion on tangible measures to achieve this and hope to see the government bringing forward its own plans to achieve this goal.
“The conditions in our EDs can’t continue to deteriorate – it’s simply not fair on our patients and clinical staff. They deserve better. A lot, lot better.”
The commitment comes as the most recent data shows more than 147,496 endured a 12 hour wait in a major ED in November.
That’s 46,764 more patients waiting 12 hours or more compared to 2021.
Further analysis by RCEM shows 1,536,831 people waited 12 hours or more from 1 January – 30 November 2025.
But for some patients, they will continue to wait extremely long periods of time once a decision to admit them to a hospital for further care was made. These are commonly referred to as ‘trolley waits’.
In November, 50,648 people waited 12 hours or more for an in-patient bed on a ward. These people are often left stranded on corridors, and in other non-clinical areas as they wait for an elusive bed to become available.