MORE than 13,000 patients waited over three days to be treated at A&Es in England last year, damning figures show.
Data from emergency departments across the country revealed that 493,751 patients were left waiting 24 hours before either being admitted to a hospital bed, transferred or discharged last year.
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The analysis, by The BMJ, also found that the number of people languishing for at least a day in A&E have increased by a third since 2023.
Experts today warned that “doctors are ashamed it has come to this” and patients would now “rather die at home than come into hospital and be waiting.”
The crisis has also seen pictures shared across social media of patients forced to sleep on the floor or sat on trolleys in hospital corridors as they wait for a bed.
It comes after fresh figures released by NHS England last week revealed that a record 2.43 million visits were recorded at A&Es across the country last month – up 16,000 on the previous record.
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According to the BMJ, a total of 13,386 patients waited at least three days in 2025.
While the figure is down for its 2023 peak of 19,579, doctors said the “phenomenon” of staggering A&E waits was consistently getting worse.
Mumtaz Patel, president of the Royal College of Physicians, said: “I’ve heard of patients who say they’d rather die at home than come into hospital and be waiting.”
James Gagg, vice-president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, said: “When we look at 24-hour waits, this isn’t a problem related to a few trusts, this is something that’s experienced by all trusts, all of the year.”
He added that a wait of “24 hours was pretty much unheard of if you go back prior to 2020.
“These 24-hour waits are very much a phenomenon of the last few years”.
The crisis has also seen pictures shared across social media of patients forced to sleep on the floor or sat on trolleys in hospital corridors as they wait for a bed Credit: Cover Images
Referring to long waits more generally, he said: “This is where harm is occurring – this is where we know patients have worse mortality due to the delays that occur in care.”
Research has shown that patients are more likely to come to harm or die if they spend a long time in emergency departments.
Dr Den Langhor, lead of the British Medical Association’s consultants committee emergency medicine, also said: “This data exposes the depth of the corridor care crisis in our emergency departments.
“Any doctor working in emergency care will have had shifts where they have left the hospital to go home for the night, and returning the next morning to see the same patients in waiting rooms or in corridors.
“And as we see here, in some cases, these patients are still waiting for a third day. This is undignified and unsafe.
“There is no excuse for hospital patients in a developed country being treated this way, and doctors are ashamed that it has come to this.”
Dr Langhor added that recent commitments by the Government to tackle corridor care “are a small step forward. but mean nothing for the thousands of patients this year who have waited days for treatment”.
“Much more urgent and substantial change is needed to resolve the problem properly and quickly,” he said.
It comes as hospitals in England recorded more than 2.43 million A&E visits in March, up 315,000 alone on February and 16,000 on the previous record in May 2024.
NHS England blamed the rise largely on last month’s meningitis outbreak in Kent, “which saw a marked increase in demand” on A&Es across the country.
According to the figures, Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust had the highest number of patients waiting with 1,771 in March Credit: Alamy
According to the figures, 46,665 patients were forced to wait more than 12 hours in A&E in March, down from the 54,649 in February.
The figure hit a record 71,517 in January.
By area, Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust had the highest number of patients waiting with 1,771 in March.
This was followed by University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust (1,511) and Barts Health NHS Trust (1,207).
A major outbreak last month in Kent led to the death of a student at the university in Canterbury and Juliette Kenny, a year 13 pupil from Queen Elizabeth’s Grammar School in Faversham.
A mutated new strain of bacteria was understood to be behind outbreak.
A spokesperson for NHS England said today: “While the number of people waiting over four hours in A&E is at a five-year low – despite record attendances – thanks to the hard work of staff, we know there are still too many people waiting an unacceptably long time or being forced to wait in inappropriate spaces.
“That’s why the NHS is reforming the urgent and emergency care system and supporting the trusts facing the biggest challenges, with some good early evidence of reductions in corridor care for patients.”
When you should call NHS 111 or go to A&E
NHS 111 is the best place to get help if you cannot contact your GP or if you urgently need medical help or advice but it’s not a non-life-threatening situation.
If you’re not sure if you need to go to A&E, you should get hep from NHS 111.
You should visit an A&E department for genuine life-threatening emergencies, such as:
Loss of consciousness
Acute confused state and fits that are not stopping
Chest pain
Breathing difficulties
Severe bleeding that cannot be stopped
Severe allergic reactions
Severe burns or scalds
Stroke
Major trauma such as a road traffic accident
Less severe injuries can be treated in urgent care centres or minor injuries units.
Source: NHS
