Health Secretary Wes Streeting earlier this week said he was “ashamed” over long waits in hospitals exacerbated by a flu epidemic
Long waits at emergency wards across England led to an average of 50 excess deaths per day in December 2024, The Times has estimated. A years-long crisis has recently come to a head amid a seasonal flu epidemic, with multiple hospitals declaring “critical incidents” amid “exceptionally high demand” over the past week.
England’s National Health Service (NHS) has long faced dire staffing shortages, with nearly 170,000 employees quitting over the course of 2022 alone.
In an article on Friday, The Times claimed that “excess deaths due to delays rose to about 16,000 last year.” According to the newspaper, the figure translates to an “estimated 50 excess deaths a day.” The Times says it used the same methodology as the one employed in last year’s analysis by the Royal College of Emergency Medicine.
The publication cited official data as indicating that one in eight patients spent more than 12 hours in A&E (Accident and Emergency) last month, a ratio that deteriorated in 2024 compared to 2023.
The newspaper quoted Tim Cooksley, from the Society for Acute Medicine, as describing “corridors full of patients experiencing degrading care, being treated in the backs of ambulances because there is simply no space in hospital.”
Speaking to the radio station LBC on Tuesday, Health Secretary Wes Streeting said he felt “genuinely distressed and ashamed about some off the things that patients are experiencing,” amid reports of 50-hour-long waits in some emergency rooms of late. The official promised to address the crisis.
In a statement the previous day, Prime Minister Keir Starmer made a similar pledge, pointing the finger at the previous conservative government. He acknowledged that hospital waiting lists had been “ballooning even before Covid.”
The NHS’ ills can be traced back to at least 2010, when the Tory leadership constrained its budget. Since then, England’s healthcare industry has been hemorrhaging staff at an alarming rate, with such factors as “workplace pressures,” burnout, and low pay cited among the reasons. The Covid-19 pandemic put an additional strain on an already understaffed NHS.
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