A&E Delays 'Intolerable' says Healthwatch England

Healthwatch England national director, Louise Ansari, has labelled pressures on the NHS as 'intolerable' on patients and staff. 

Ansari was responding to NHS performance stats which show the number of patients waiting more than 12 hours in A&E for treatment has exceeded 50,000 a week for the first time. 

Conversely, the waiting list for routine NHS care has fallen for the first time since the pandemic began, though 7.19 million people are still waiting for hospital treatment, such as hip and knee replacements. This includes an estimated 1,423 people in England who have been waiting more than two years to start routine hospital treatment at the end of November.

Healthwatch Lambeth approached emergency services in the borough for comment. A spokesperson for King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust said:

"We regularly see a combined daily total of more than 840 patients in our Emergency Departments at King’s College Hospital and Princess Royal University Hospital so capacity is stretched. We have recently taken steps to move patients requiring admission more quickly to wards to help ensure we maximise space in our Emergency Departments. We are working with partners across the NHS and social care to ensure that our beds are available for patients who are most in need of acute care by ensuring patients who are ready for discharge can leave hospital as soon as possible.

“We have make real strides in tackling our waiting lists for planned operations. The number of patients waiting over a year for surgery has reduced from nearly 7,000 in February 2021 to 800 due to the hard work of Trust staff.”