320 patients a week die needlessly due to A&E delays, study suggests
New analysis reveals the scale of what's being called ‘devastating’ harm due to long waits for hospital beds
320 patients in England may have died unnecessarily each week in 2024 due to long waits for a hospital bed after arriving in A&E, according to new figures from the Royal College of Emergency Medicine (RCEM).
According to RCEM estimates there were 16,644 excess deaths last year which were linked to long waits for beds – a 20% increase on 2023.
RCEM’s president, Dr Adrian Boyle said: “I am at a loss as how to adequately describe the scale of this figure.
"To give it some context, it is the equivalent of two aeroplanes crashing every week.
“It’s sobering, heartbreaking, devastating and more. Because this is so much more than just data and statistics.
“Each number represents a person – a dearly loved family member, grandparents, parents, siblings and friends – who has died because of a system in crisis.
“These were patients who were stuck in emergency departments, watching the clock tick by as they waited extremely long hours, often on a trolley in a corridor, for an in-patient bed to become available for them.”
The findings will be discussed by Dr Boyle at the launch of the new All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Emergency Care.
Corridor care and long delays under scrutiny
Last year, more than 1.7 million patients in England waited 12 hours or more to be admitted, discharged or transferred from A&E. Of these, around 69% were waiting to be admitted to a hospital ward, RCEM said.
RCEM used a study published in the Emergency Medicine Journal, which found one excess death for every 72 patients who waited eight to 12 hours in A&E before being admitted. The risk of death starts rising after just five hours.
Dr Boyle warned the real number of deaths linked to emergency delays could be even higher: “We know there may well be many more tragic deaths linked to long stays.
“For example, patients left waiting for urgent medical care in the community because ambulances can’t safely hand over their patients in emergency departments because they are full, or those too anxious to seek help when they should.”
He also pointed out the toll on A&E staff working in overstretched conditions: “They are trying their best to deliver care in areas that are designed to be throughfares – not treatment spaces.”
He added: “Ultimately, the emergency care crisis is fixable. It’s all about flow – getting patients into a ward bed when they need one and home again as soon as they are well enough to leave.”
Nealry half a million patients waited over 24 hours in A&E
At the APPG launch, Dr Boyle is expected to highlight that 478,901 patients waited more than 24 hours in A&E last year – one in every 35 people attending emergency departments. This figure is up by over 100,000 from the year before.
The APPG, chaired by Labour MP and A&E doctor Dr Rosena Allin-Khan, will prioritise examining the impact of delays and so-called ‘corridor care’ on patients.
“These statistics make for sobering reading,” Dr Allin-Khan said. “Ever-increasing numbers of excess deaths and long wait times in our emergency departments are simply not sustainable.
“As an emergency doctor, I know exactly how stretched our A&Es across the country are, as I see it on a weekly basis on my shifts.”
She added: “The Government have pledged to fix the foundations of our public services and our A&Es must be at the front and centre of this ambition.
“There has never been an APPG for Emergency Care before and this is exactly the vehicle needed to bring together industry experts, legislators and the Government to move things forward.”
Dr Nick Murch, president of the Society for Acute Medicine, called the figures a “profound failure within our healthcare system” and said: “It is simply shocking to see such a large number of deaths associated with excess waits in emergency departments, but, tragically, the warning signs have been present for far too long.
“We must ensure that 12-hour waits in emergency departments again become an infrequent exception rather than the norm and that will require urgent and adequate action on workforce and capacity issues which remain unresolved.”