RCEM calculates 268 people are likely to have died each week in 2023 while waiting up to 12 hours for a bed
Almost 14,000 people died needlessly last year in England while waiting in A&E for up to 12 hours a new estimate suggests.
Calculations by the Royal College of Emergency Medicine (RCEM) based on a large study of excess deaths and waiting times show that 268 people are likely to have died each week in 2023 because of excessive waits in emergency departments.
The estimate used a study of more than 5 million NHS patients published in the Emergency Medicine Journal in 2021, which found one excess death for every 72 patients who spent eight to 12 hours in an A&E department.
The risk of death started to increase after five hours and got worse with longer waiting times, the study found.
This is usually worse in the poor parts of town. I worked for a hospital system and the staffing was excellent where everyone was in just to recover from a face lift. Closed down the maternity ward because it just wasn’t profitable. Healthcare should not be for profit in this manner. It’s gross.