Thousands of patients a day are being forced to wait 12 hours or more in A&E, according to leaked NHS data.
Internal NHS data seen by The Independent shows in a single week last month nearly 25,000 patients waited for longer than 12 hours after arriving at an emergency department, indicating record delays in March.
Pressures on the NHS have been increasing and healthcare leaders have warned of further problems during the Easter, as trusts make plea to the public to use A&E “wisely” this weekend.
Glen Burley, chief executive of South Warwickshire NHS Foundation Trust, said while bank holidays are always difficult this one was more worrying.
He said in addition to the usual problems hospitals faced “acute staffing” shortages, made worse due to Covid, while the “staffing crisis” in social care was “more extreme than ever.”
He added: “Staff are weary, not just because of the demands of Covid but because they see little prospect of an end to the pressures. Alongside all of this their pay has stagnated and the cost of living has risen. We will of course cope, but it’s hard to paint a picture of hope of a reprieve in the near future.”
Emergency care leaders have warned the long waits uncovered by The Independent are “crippling” A&Es leading to patient harm, with vulnerable patients particularly at risk.
The leaked data shows the actual number of 12 hour waits in A&E, sometimes called “trolley waits”, is more than six times higher than what is shown in publicly available NHS figures, with waits hitting almost 100,000 in recent months.
The Independent can also reveal A&E waits for mental patients are significantly disproportionate, with nearly double the number waiting more than 12 hours compared to all patients. This is despite mental health patients only accounting for 3 per cent of attendances overall.
Royal College of Emergency Medicine president Dr Katherine Henderson said the 12 hour waiting time figures were “huge” and patients are coming to harm, with mental health patients waiting days.
Doctors across the country have warned they’re now regulary seeing patients waiting more than 24 hours in A&E with some patients being left in chairs as trolleys run out.
Feryal Clark, Labour’s shadow Health Minister, said in response to the figures: “Under the Conservatives, waits in A&E have been unacceptably long and growing longer, well before the pandemic began. Britain deserves better.
“The last Labour Government brought waiting times down, and the next Labour government will provide the NHS with the staff, equipment and modern technology needed to treat patients on time.”
The data leak comes ahead of official monthly A&E figures due to be published by the NHS on Thursday. These figures count the number of hours patients wait after a decision to admit them has been made and so mask the true scale of waiting times.
The official data, for February showed 16,404 patients waited more than 12 hours from a decision to admit, which was a record at the time.
However, the NHS has internal data, collected since 2021 which measures waits from when a person arrives at A&E – some figures are available dating back to 2019.
According to the new internal data seen by The Independent for just one week in mid March nearly 25,000 patients were recorded to have waited more than 12 hours. This accounts for 8 per cent of patients waited over 12 hours which the highest recorded to far.
Senior NHS sources have said the waits by the end of March are likely to be 100,000 or more as figures, for November seen by The Independent, shows nearly 98,000 12 hour waits in November.
For 2022-23 the NHS has a new target for less than 2 per cent of patients to wait more than 12 hours after arriving to A&E.
