Abolishing NHSE ‘must not distract’ focus from providing quality patient care

13 March 2025

Patient care must remain the priority as the government embarks on abolishing NHS England over the next two years.

That’s the message from the Royal College of Emergency Medicine (RCEM) following the Prime Minister’s major announcement today (13 March 2025) that will bring the service under the direct control of the Department of Health and Social Care.

The move comes as one in every nine patients who attended an Emergency Department in England last month waited 12 hours or more to be admitted, discharged or transferred, according to new figures by NHSE, as ‘winter’ continues to plague the health care system.

As Emergency Medicine clinicians try to deliver the best care that they can in a system that is in crisis, frontline NHSE staff have said they are facing a rise in physical violence from patients and their relatives, or other members of the public, while they care for people in their time of need.

This revelation came from the results of NHSE’s annual staff survey, also published today.

Dr Adrian Boyle, President of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine said: “Everyone wants to ensure that our health service – which is admired and revered around the world – is run as well as possible.

“No doubt today’s announcement will have caused a great deal of worry and uncertainty throughout NHSE and this period of transition must be handled sensitively.

“We await more information about how this complex task will be achieved and how the new structure will operate. It must not distract from the central and most important function of the NHS – to provide a high standard of care for people when they are ill.

“Patients in Emergency Departments continue to experience dangerous and unacceptable conditions – with more than 141,000 people having to endure waits of more than 12 hours in A&Es in England last month, and Norovirus is still heaping pressure on hospitals full to bursting.

“We all want things to get better and this restructure may be part of that. As ever RCEM will work with the DHSC and health leaders to improve conditions for staff and patients, and to deliver the health service we all need and want.”

Also released today was NHSE’s Situation Report for the week of 3 March to 9 March 2025.

It reveals:

An average of 1,063 patients a day were in hospital with norovirus – often referred to as the winter vomiting bug. While this is ever so slightly down on the week before (1,094), it is more than double the number of people hospitalised with the illness compared to the same week last year (683).
Hospitals remain almost full– standing at 95.5% bed occupancy. The level considered safe is 85%
An average of 13, 717 patients were stuck in hospital despite being deemed medically well enough to leave.

NHSE also published the monthly A&E Performance data covering February 2025.

It shows:

1, 271, 336 people attended a major Emergency Department
Of these, 141, 493 patients waited 12 hours or more from their time of arrival
Each day, there was a daily average of 13,717 patients who were considered to be medically well enough to leave but remained in hospital. This is often due to the lack of social care.

* Graphical representation of the data can be found here and more details of all RCEM’s analysis is here.