320 A&E patients die needlessly every week linked to hospital bed waits

Some 320 patients a week may have died needlessly in England last year due to very long waits in A&E for a hospital bed, figures suggest.

Some 320 patients a week may have died needlessly in England last year due to very long waits in A&E for a hospital bed, figures suggest.

Calculations by the Royal College of Emergency Medicine (RCEM) estimate there were more than 16,600 deaths of patients linked to long waits for a bed, an increase of a fifth on 2023.

RCEM’s president, Dr Adrian Boyle, said the figures were “the equivalent of two aeroplanes crashing every week” and were devastating for families.

He 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.”

Dr Boyle will discuss the findings at the launch of the newly formed All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Emergency Care.

The group, chaired by Labour MP Dr Rosena Allin-Khan, an A&E doctor, has said it will look first at the harm caused to patients by delays and “corridor care”.

Last year, more than 1.7 million patients waited 12 hours or more to be admitted, discharged or transferred from A&E.

Of these, 69.2% were waiting to be admitted to a ward for further care, the RCEM said.

For its excess death estimates, the RCEM uses a study of more than five million NHS patients published in the Emergency Medicine Journal (EMJ) in 2021.

This found there was one excess death for every 72 patients that spent eight to 12 hours in an A&E department prior to being found a bed.

The risk of death started to increase after five hours and got worse with longer waiting times.

Using this method, RCEM estimates there were 16,644 excess deaths in 2024 related to stays of 12 hours or more.

This is the equivalent of 320 lives lost every week and up 20% on the 13, 919 the previous year.

Dr Boyle said the methodology only applies to one group of NHS patients and “we know there may well be many more tragic deaths linked to long stays.”

He added: “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 with they should.

Published: 15/05/2025 by Radio NewsHub