Minor improvements in performance welcome amid ‘substantial’ summer pressures on A&Es

10 August 2023

The Royal College of Emergency Medicine (RCEM) has responded to the latest Emergency Department performance statistics for July 2023.

Published today (10 August 2023) by NHS England, the July data show 96,515 patients waited 12-hours or more from their time of arrival, this accounts for 7.3% of major A&E (which deal with the most serious emergency conditions and injuries) attendances. This figure is 10.8% lower than the previous month (June 2023 saw 108,225 12-hour waits measured from their time of arrival at A&E).

Commenting on these figures, Dr Adrian Boyle, President of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, said:

“It is welcome to see further small improvements in these data. The number of patients waiting 12-hours or more from their time of arrival has dropped below 100,000 for the first time since February 2023, which was the first month of data to be made publicly available.

“This remains an appallingly high number of patients experiencing these dangerous delays, but the trend is beginning to move in the right direction.

“We remain concerned that there is a lack of adequate bed capacity for patients who need admitting. There is still a significant shortfall of bed numbers and this needs to be addressed before winter bites.

“Our members and their colleagues continue to work tirelessly in difficult circumstances and these improvements are in no small way a testament to their hard work.

“Emergency care continues to face unprecedented pressure for a summer period, it is likely this will be our most difficult summer yet.”

–ENDS-

Notes to editor

Head to our data & statistics page to see graphs and visualizations of the latest figures: https://rcem.ac.uk/data-statistics/

The latest Emergency Department performance figures published by NHS England for July 2023 for show:

There were 1,379,854 attendances at Type 1 Emergency Departments
- This represents a 0.6% decrease when compared to the previous month and a 0.4% decrease compared with July 2022
- Type 1 Emergency Departments saw 44,511 attendances per day during July.
23,934 patients were delayed for 12-hours or more from decision to admit to admission
- This represents a decrease of 9.8% compared with June, and a decrease of 18.4% compared with July 2022.
Four-hour performance at major Emergency Departments was 60.9%
- This represents a 0.7 percentage point increase from the previous month and 3.9 percentage point increase from July 2022.
Type 1 admissions stood at 391,312
- This is a daily average of 12,623 which is a 9.1 percentage increase since July 2022
- 28.4% of Type 1 attendances were admitted, this is a 0.9 percentage point increase from the previous month.
109,515 patients spent more than four hours in an Emergency Department from decision to admit to admission (also referred to as ‘trolley waits’) this 3.8% decrease when compared to June, and a 19.6% decrease compared with July 2022.

Beds data for July 2023 show:

Last month, there were 97,337 general and acute beds available
- This represents a 0.9% decrease from June, but an increase of 1% from July 2022.
The occupancy rate was 91.8%
- This is 1.2 percentage points lower than June.
Since October 2022, 50 G&A beds have been added to the NHS
- However, since it was announced in January this year that 5,000 new beds will be made available by next winter, the number of general and acute beds available at Type 1 acute trusts has fallen by 2,709 between January and July 2023.

NHS England: Supplementary ECDS Analysis July 2023 final (12-hour length of stay data measured from the time of arrival) data show:

In July 2023, 96,515 patients waited 12-hours or more from their time of arrival
- This accounts for 7.3% of Type 1 Emergency Department attendances.
- This is more than 4 times larger than the number of 12-hour waits measured from decision to admit (23,934).
- This figure is 10.8% lower than the previous month. June 2023 saw 108,225 TOA attendances.

Sit-rep data for delayed discharges in July 2023 show:

On average 11,877 patients a day remained in hospital despite no longer meeting the criteria to reside.
- This represents a decrease of 3.8% since June 2023 (12,334 patients each day) and a decrease of 7.9% since July 2022 (12,898 each day).