Winter set to be worst ever for A&E waits, warns health leaders

• Dr. Adrian Boyle believes A&E demand is “much worse”
• 37,837 individuals waited more than 12 hours for a decision in November.
• This compares to 10,646 who waited over 12 hours in November 2021.

Health chiefs have warned that the NHS will have the worst A&E wait times this winter due to hospitals being “pressed like never before.”

According to the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, this December’s hospital bed occupancy and emergency treatment wait times will likely rank as the worst ever.

The warning comes as hospital demand is surging as a result of seasonal illnesses like the flu, strep A, and Covid.

To guarantee patient care, the government claims to be “working hard.”

In recent days, a number of NHS trusts have declared critical incidents, indicating that extreme strain prevents them from operating normally.

Hospitals were “too packed,” according to Dr. Adrian Boyle, president of the RCEM, who also told the reupdated media outlet that the situation was “far worse than in prior years.”

According to Dr. Boyle, the “most evident evidence” of this is ambulances parked outside of hospitals.

According to information from NHS England, some 37,837 individuals waited more than 12 hours at A&E for a decision regarding their admission to a hospital department in November.

This was more than three times as many people as waited more than 12 hours in November 2021, when an estimated 10,646 people did so.

Dr. Boyle added he “would not be at all surprised” if December turned out to be the worst month on record for hospital occupancy rates in separate comments to the PA news agency.

He said, “More than 90% of top doctors said last week there were individuals waiting in their emergency room for more than 24 hours.”

Dra Boyle remarked: “The gallows joke about this is now that 24 hours in A&E is not a documentary, it’s a way of life.”

He said the health service had been stretched further by a “staff retention crisis”, as well as recent nurse and ambulance worker strikes and a “demand shock” caused by winter infections.

Fears of a “twindemic” of flu and Covid infections were “sadly being realized”, added MP Steve Brine, chair of the Commons health and social care select committee.

This was “very heavily weighted” towards flu infections, Mr. Brine said in his own interview with the reupdated media outlet.

Flu case numbers in Wales have put the country’s hospitals in an “unprecedented situation”, says its top doctor – and those with symptoms have been asked to stay away from hospitals.

At the same time, the 111 telephone helpline has come under “significant pressure”, Dr. Sir Frank Atherton said. People have instead been urged to consult the 111 website.

According to the most recent statistics, there were more than 3,700 flu patients a day in hospitals in England last week, up from 520 patients a day the month prior and just 34 patients a day at this time last year.

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