5 February 2026
Slight improvements to long waits in Northern Ireland’s Emergency Departments are encouraging – but the overall picture still looks bleak.
That’s the Royal College of Emergency Medicine’s view on the state of Emergency Care in Northern Ireland, following the publication of the latest performance figures for A&E in the devolved nation.
Published today (5 February), the data is for quarter 3 of 2025-26, which covers October to December 2025.
The figures showed that more than one in five (21.2%) of patients are still waiting more than 12 hours to be admitted, discharged or transferred in major Northern Irish Emergency Departments (EDs).
This was a slight improvement on the same period in 2024, where 22.2% of patients waited more than 12 hours.
Further, 584 people waited more than two days in ED to be admitted to a hospital bed in December alone.
Dr Michael Perry, RCEM Vice President for Northern Ireland, said: “While it’s a little encouraging to see some improvements on the longest waits, the situation is still utterly appalling.
“Patients who come to us at their absolute worst should not worry about facing a wait which can be measured in days. It’s just not acceptable.
“It’s important to remember that these waits are in noisy, overcrowded departments where patients are being crammed in wherever they can because there is simply not the capacity.
“This permacrisis in our EDs must end. It’s bad for patients, and unsustainable for our staff who are trying their best against impossible odds to provide good care.
“The crux of the issue is at the ‘back door’ of the hospital, not that we have too many people coming to A&E. Too many patients are stuck occupying beds when they are medically fit to be discharged.
“We must see action on overcrowding, better support for staff and policymakers willing to take accountability for bringing down long ED waits in the long term.”
Today’s data also showed that:
- More than two-thirds of patients waited longer than four hours, the worst of any quarter since at least 2011, when records began
- Since 2015, the number of people waiting 12 or more hours has increased 43 times over, despite attendances only increasing by 6% (0.06 times)
- The median average wait in an ED for admission into a hospital bed was 14 hours and 2 minutes, down from 15 hours and 49 minutes the previous year
- Non-admitted patients waited an average of five hours in the ED