9 January 2025
With patients at risk of harm due to spending days in Emergency Departments and health care professionals left in tears due to winter pressures, the Royal College of Emergency Medicine has asked ‘how has this been allowed to happen again?’
In the past few days, up to 20 hospitals across the country have declared ‘critical incidents’ due to ‘exceptionally high’ workloads on A&Es amid a surge in flu cases.
Some hospitals have taken further action, limiting the number of people who can visit and be with loved ones, while encouraging people to wear masks to limit the spread of infection in hospital.
The scale of the challenge faced by Urgent and Emergency Care services is reflected in the latest data from NHS England.
The figures, which cover 30 December 2024 – 5 January 2025 , are part of NHSE’s weekly winter ‘situation reports’.
Released today – 9 January 2025 – they show:
Almost 10,000 extra beds would be needed to bring hospital occupancy down to a level considered safe, and enabling patients to be moved from A&E on to inpatient wards.
Staff sickness is also an increasing problem with an average of 53,270 staff absent due to illness each day – an increase of 2, 868 compared to the same week last year.
Dr Adrian Boyle, President of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine said, “I am starting to run out of words which adequately capture the scale of the issues facing the Emergency Care system at the moment.
“It has been described as a ‘crisis’, as ‘brutal’, as ‘unacceptable’ and ‘dangerous’ – it is all of these, and more.
“I am at a loss as to how this has been allowed to happen again. This time last year, RCEM warned that there had been at least 14,000 deaths in 2023 associated with long A&E waits before admission.
“At the time, people were shocked, it was described as a national scandal. When he came to power, the Prime Minister referenced it, Lord Darzi mentioned it in is review.
“This week the Health Secretary said he admitted he was ashamed of the state of Emergency Care – and I am convinced this is a sentiment shared by our members and their colleagues.
“In a few weeks we will know the number of people whose deaths were linked to long stays in A&E in 2024.
“We are experiencing a national ‘A&E emergency’, patients are at risk and some will die. And let’s be clear, these are deaths which are ultimately preventable if the correct action is taken. But it cannot by solely blamed on flu – the system was fragile going into winter.
“The government cannot allow this to be repeated. We must never see again vulnerable people exposed to this level of danger, and poor care.”
Separate A&E performance data also released today by NHSE show that in England in December 2024, 166,989 patients waited 12 hours or more in major EDs – this is over a 10% increase compared to November, as well as December 2023. This equates to almost one in every eight attendances.
The figures also reveal:
