‘Slight improvements hard to celebrate when thousands of people are enduring extreme A&E waits’: RCEM

12 June 2025

Small improvements in A&E performance are hard to celebrate when almost one in 10 patients endured an extreme stay in England’s Emergency Departments last month.

That’s the response from the Royal College of Emergency Medicine as the latest performance data, published today from NHS England, reveals 135,219 patients faced a wait of 12-hours or more in May.

That’s a slight improvement of 1.47% when compared to April – when this figure stood at 137, 207 patients.

The data, covering May 2025, also shows:

There were 1,453,036 attendances to major EDs – the fourth busiest month on record, and the second busiest May on record.

Of these patients, 61.2% (889,434) were seen within the target of four hours – up by 53,536 compared to April.

42,891 people waited 12 hours or more after the decision to admit them to hospital was made – commonly referred to as a ‘trolley wait’. This is the highest number for the month of May on record.

Hospital occupancy remains dangerously high with 92,910 out of 99,956 beds (93%) occupied – the same as the previous month. The level considered to be safe is 85% and more than 9, 350 beds would be needed for this level to be achieved.

The data comes after Chancellor unveiled the government’s 2025 Spending Review yesterday, announcing a £29 billion funding boost for the NHS that will go towards GP training to deliver more appointments, the roll out mental health support to schools, as well as improving technology within the system.

And today, Rachel Reeves has also pledged an investment of £6 billion to fund new scanners, ambulances and Urgent Treatment Centres

This investment builds on the government’s Urgent and Emergency Care Plan 2025/26 that was published last week, which pledged to reduce the number of patients exposed to waits of 12 hours in A&E to less than 10%.

That target had already been achieved when looking at 12 hour stays last month (9.3%)

President of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, Dr Adrian Boyle, said: “Any improvement to the number of patients facing the most extreme waits in our Emergency Departments is of course welcome.

“However, they are hard to celebrate when thousands of people are enduring these waits time and time again – often on a trolley in a corridor.

“It’s not only dehumanising and frustrating – it’s dangerous.

“While there are some positive measures in the government’s Urgent and Emergency Care plan to tackle the crisis, there is certainly a long way to go to ensure patients are receiving the care they need and deserve, with no funding directed towards A&Es in yesterday’s Spending Review.

“The Health Secretary has himself said no patient should ever experience long waits in these conditions – and we look forward to seeing how they will be reduced in the government’s upcoming 10-year plan.”