Comment EDITOR’S COMMENTwith LOUISE FRAMPTON THE CLINICAL SERVICES JOURNAL Editor
Louise Frampton
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STEP COMMUNICATIONS ISSN No. 1478-5641
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The Royal College of Emergency Medicine said that almost 10,000 extra beds would be needed to bring hospital occupancy down to a level considered safe, enabling patients to be moved from A&E onto inpatient wards. Staff sickness is also an increasing problem with an average of 53,270 staff absent due to illness each day – an increase of 2, 868 compared to the same week last year. Separate A&E performance data, also released by NHSE, show that in England in December
2024, 166,989 patients waited 12 hours or more in major EDs – this is over a 10% increase compared to November, as well as December 2023. This equates to almost one in every eight attendances. Dr. Adrian Boyle, President of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, said, “I am starting
to run out of words which adequately capture the scale of the issues facing the Emergency Care system, at the moment. It has been described as a ‘crisis’, as ‘brutal’, as ‘unacceptable’ and ‘dangerous’ – it is all of these, and more. “I am at a loss as to how this has been allowed to happen again. This time last year, RCEM
warned that there had been at least 14,000 deaths in 2023 associated with long A&E waits before admission. At the time, people were shocked; it was described as a national scandal…In a few weeks, we will know the number of people whose deaths were linked to long stays in A&E in 2024. “We are experiencing a national ‘A&E emergency’, patients are at risk, and some will die. And
let’s be clear, these are deaths which are ultimately preventable if the correct action is taken.” Dr. Boyle added that the situation “cannot be solely blamed on flu” – the system was already fragile going into winter. “We must never again see vulnerable people exposed to this level of danger, and poor care,” he concluded. As RCEM points out, the government cannot allow this to be repeated. Patients are paying the ultimate price - unsafe, ‘corridor care’ must not become normalised.
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February 2025 I
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The crisis in emergency care
In this issue, we share the results of surveys conducted on the state of emergency care – both from a patient and clinician perspective. While there were some positive responses from patients to the CQC’s patient survey, published in November 2024, the situation quickly deteriorated in emergency departments across the UK, as the NHS entered the Winter period and struggled to keep up with increasing demand. The situation was described by staff as being “as bad as the Covid pandemic”. (Source: BBC, 9 Jan 2025) As Emergency Departments struggled amidst rising cases of a new strain of flu, safety concerns escalated. With patients at risk of harm due to spending days in Emergency Departments and healthcare professionals left in tears due to winter pressures, the Royal College of Emergency Medicine raised the question: ‘how has this been allowed to happen again?’ In early January, up to 20 hospitals across the country declared ‘critical incidents’ due to
‘exceptionally high’ workloads on A&Es amid a surge in flu cases. Some hospitals took further action, limiting the number of people who can visit and be with loved ones, while encouraging people to wear masks to limit the spread of infection in hospital. The scale of the challenge faced by Urgent and Emergency Care services was reflected in
data from NHS England. The figures, from 30 December 2024 – 5 January 2025 , showed: l An average of 5,407 patients were in hospital with flu every day for this week – 3.5 times higher compared to the same time last year.
l More than 1,100 people were in hospital with Covid every day, during this week, with 626 patients admitted with norovirus (often referred to as the ‘winter vomiting bug’) – which is almost 50% up on the same time last year.
l On average, 12,591 patients remained in hospital each day even though they were deemed medically well enough to be discharged.
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