A&E waiting times for hospital beds have skyrocketed, with ‘trolley waits’ reaching over 24 hours. New figures from the Liberal Democrats show that 49,000 A&E visitors waited over 24 hours for a hospital bed in the previous year, with one even waiting 10 days to be admitted. Pensioners were found to make up 70% of these visitors, with one reported to have waited close to six days for a bed. The Liberal Democrats have called for the Government to end the normalisation of corridor care by developing a Winterproofing NHS task force.
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‘The least patients deserve is the dignity to be treated in an appropriate area. Not the ramshackled waiting rooms and corridors that far too many have to suffer through for hours. That is why the Government must ensure that this is the last winter crisis anyone will experience and end corridor care by the end of this Parliament,’ said Liberal Democrat Health and Social Care spokesperson, Helen Morgan MP. ‘This cannot go on any longer. Liberal Democrats are calling for a new Winterproofing taskforce, alongside a team of experienced NHS heads who can go into failing NHS Trusts and bring them up to the standard patients deserve.’
Health leaders have responded to the figures, suggesting that a stronger workforce is key to solving the dire state of emergency. The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) have slammed the ‘unacceptable’ state of corridor care, deeming it unsafe, as well as undignified. They claim that pressure on hospital emergency rooms could be eased by bolstering the nursing workforce and investing more into community services, therefore decreasing the number of patients cared for in risky environments.
‘Nursing staff are the key to solving the crisis in corridor care. They deal with the devastating consequences of treating patients on corridors every single day,’ RCN General Secretary and Chief Executive Professor Nicola Ranger. ‘However, student and international recruitment into nursing is in freefall and there is a retention crisis in the nursing workforce. Without urgently solving these, the government’s ambition of shifting care from hospitals to community and to reduce demand on the NHS will not be deliverable.’