Thursday 15 September 2022 07:20 PM NHS crisis: More than 1m patients left waiting 12 plus hours in A+E over last ... trends now
More than a million patients faced 12-hour waits in overwhelmed A&E units last year, according to official statistics which lays bare the horrifying scale of the emergency care crisis.
NHS data published today show 1.14 million Britons spent at least half a day stuck in waiting rooms or corridors between April 2021 and March 2022.
That figure was three times more than during the same period the year before.
It means 2021/22 was the busiest ever year in A&E, as casualty units faced Covid and the knock-on effects of the pandemic on top of day-to-day pressures.
Experts today called the trend 'deeply concerning', warning of 'grave consequences' ahead.
NHS data published today show 1.14 million Britons spent at least half a day stuck in waiting rooms or corridors between April 2021 and March 2022
Roughly 500 people are already feared to be dying every week due to delays in A&E and slow ambulance response times, which has seen 999 callers left waiting up to 40 hours for an ambulance.
The NHS says the current crisis is being driven by so-called 'bed blockers', which newly-appointed Health Secretary Thérèse Coffey has vowed to clamp down on.
Another of her immediate priorities is access issues with GPs, which experts have suggested is partly to blame for record pressures in A&E.
Speaking to MailOnline, Dr Nick Scriven, former president of the Society for Acute Medicine, warned that 'our worst fears are now a reality'.
He added: 'We have warned that it is essential the number of patients waiting for prolonged periods for urgent care must not be seen as the new normal — so these numbers are deeply concerning.
'This will have grave consequences as we move through the year.
'The new Health Secretary has to act swiftly and set out an immediate and comprehensive plan to increase workforce and capacity as a starting point to try to halt this spiral.'
Emergency unit data shows that three in 10 Britons were forced to wait longer than four hours in A&E departments in August, while nearly one thousand per day waited for 12 hours (monthly data provided by NHS England, which is different to the NHS Digital dataset)
