More than 550 patients are dying ‘unnecessarily’ every week because of Britain’s overcrowded A&E departments, alarming new research suggests.
The study, published today, found that for every 10 per cent increase in A&E occupancy, the risk of a patient dying within 28 days increases by one per cent.
The research estimates overcrowding contributed to 554 excess – otherwise avoidable – deaths every week across the UK last year. This is the equivalent to 28,808 deaths a year.
Emergency doctors say the latest findings are further evidence overcrowding is putting many lives at risk as patients are treated on trolleys and in corridors.
Dr Ian Higginson, President of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, said the study is “evidence” of an “utterly normalised and unacceptable state of affairs.” He added: “People are dying in association with overcrowding in Emergency Departments. This should be cause for alarm among policymakers, and yet we are not seeing any urgency.”
The new research, being presented at the European Emergency Medicine Congress, and carried out by members of the Trainee Emergency Research Network, examined how full emergency departments were and what subsequently happened to their patients.
Using their findings, researchers estimated overcrowding contributed to 554 excess deaths a week across the UK last year which would otherwise have been avoidable.
The study does not mean overcrowding alone caused each of those deaths. Instead, it estimates the additional mortality statistically associated with increasingly crowded emergency departments.
The RCEM is now calling on governments to urgently prioritise “tackling overcrowding, long emergency department waits and the associated risk to patients.”
Danielle Jefferies, Senior Analyst at The King’s Fund, said the study is: “another stark reminder of the harrowing situation patients and staff continue to face in emergency departments”.
She said the research “should bring a renewed urgency to address this issue” and that the consequences of failing to do so “could be devastating.”
She also said the high levels of occupancy in A&E’s are a “wider symptom” of problems across the health system.
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King’s Fund analysis shows that more than 2,000 patients a day were receiving corridor care in England in May.
In addition, an average of almost 13,000 patients a day over the past four years is stuck in hospital beds – bed blockers – due to a lack of social care. This is the equivalent to around one in every ten hospital beds.
“Bed blockers” are estimated to have cost the NHS £2.7billion in 2025/26, up 7.5 per cent in a year.
England recorded 7.3million A&E attendances this summer – 7.5 per cent more than last winter.
The King’s Fund has warned the NHS is increasingly facing a “dual crisis”, with intense pressure during both summer and winter and little respite for staff.
The Government has pledged to end corridor care by the end of this Parliament.
A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: “The NHS faced the busiest summer in its history this year, but thanks to the incredible work of NHS staff, 75 per cent of people in A&E were seen in four hours in August.
“Overcrowding can have a serious impact on patients’ experience and safety, which is why we are taking urgent action to reduce pressure on emergency departments and end corridor care.
“We know there is much more to do to reduce pressures on A&E departments, which is why we’re going further and faster to improve emergency care, deploying expert teams into the most challenged trusts and investing more than £1.5billion in hospital buildings and facilities to help them withstand year-round pressure. And by shifting more care into the community, we are helping people to get the care they need closer to home.”
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