06 June 2025
A new plan aimed at improving emergency care in England has been described as both ‘good and bad’ by the Royal College of Emergency Medicine.
The new Urgent and Emergency Care Plan 2025/26 has been published today (6 June 2025) by NHSE and the Department of Health.
It contains a range of pledges and ambitions aimed at avoiding another winter A&E crisis – which last year saw so called ‘corridor care’ become endemic, and clinicians battling a quad-demic of viruses.
The plan includes a commitment to publish A&E performance data from each individual hospital in England which is something RCEM has been pushing for, and which has been welcomed by the College.
However, RCEM has concerns about the lack of a cast-iron commitment to ending dangerous and demeaning 12-hour waits in Emergency Departments.
As well as the promise to publish site-specific data, the plan also includes pledges to:
It also details that almost £450m will be made available to support the expansion of Same Day Emergency and Urgent Treatment Centres, to expand the provision of Mental Health Crisis Assessment Centres and specialist mental health in patient bed numbers, as well as providing around 500 new ambulances by March next year. Although RCEM understand this is not new money and will come from existing funding.
Responding, RCEM President, Dr Adrian Boyle said: “We have been awaiting this plan since January, and we are pleased to see its publication today as the sooner we get on with addressing the issues which manifest themselves in the corridors and carparks of our A&Es the better.
“There is some good and some bad – but we whole heartedly welcome the commitment to publish A&E performance data for each, and every, hospital and we thank NHSE and DSHC for heeding our recommendation.
“It will provide a true picture of the pressures and challenges being faced and will prevent any potential ‘muddying of the waters’ which can happen when only Trust-level information is provided. As this data is already available, we urge NHSE to start publishing it as soon as possible.
“In this plan, for possibly the first time, NHSE acknowledges the shameful situation being experienced by patients and clinicians across the country’s Emergency Departments – and that must be commended.
“However, some parts lack ambition – for example accepting that 10% of people will face A&E waits of more than 12 hours, when no patient should. Also maintaining the four-hour standard at 78% when the stated aim is that 95% of patients should move through the ED within this time – something which hasn’t happened for a decade.
“We have concerns about how the maximum 45-minute ambulance handover will be achieved without exposing patients to risk and increasing overcrowding in our departments; and we will be pushing to ensure that the new so called ‘Mental Health A&Es’ and new SDECs are co-located with existing Emergency Departments.
“We now wait and see how this is implemented and what other measures to support UEC will be included in the Government’s 10 Year Plan for the NHS.
“Our members and their patients need an Emergency Care system which functions as it should. It is nothing less than they deserve.”
The plan’s publication follows the finding of the British Attitudes Survey published in April which revealed that 69% of respondents were very or quite dissatisfied with the length of time it took to be seen in A&E.
Meanwhile, the most important priorities cited by respondents for the NHS included ‘improving waiting times in A&E (49%), which was considered the second most important – behind access to GPs but ahead of elective care waiting list.
