Busiest year on record for NHS emergency services in England

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When you have been doing this job for a long time, you become used to the annual winter pressures story, but I had a call today that really took me aback.  It was from a consultant in an emergency department.  I am not going to say where to protect him, but I have verified what he was telling me.

As of 3pm today, they had a mental health patient on a trolley who had been waiting for 92 hours, a 66-year-old had been on a hard couch in the emergency department for 48 hours, another medical patient, 45 hours

And he said that was just the tip of the iceberg.

A new corridor has been opened to take the overflow of patients, but he also wanted to tell me the consequences of these sort of pressures.
Over the past month, a patient took their own life in the department, while another patient died in the corridor.

The consultant was very upset – naturally – about this.

He then went on to say that ambulances are now being told – after a certain length of time – to offload the patient and leave them.  He received a message from his bosses asking for barriers to be put in place to stop patients being brought in.

He said he felt like he was working against the paramedics rather than with them.

NHS England figures today say it was the busiest year on record for emergency services. Flu cases are high – it is cold – and Prof Sir Stephen Powis, NHS national medical director, also said today that we are a population that is getting older, and certainly when I have been in emergency departments they are largely older and frail patients.

These pressures are being felt across the UK, but specifically in England. There were currently about 20 trusts which have declared critical incidents today, and it has been similar over the past couple of days.

These incidents can last for just an hour or so, but it means they do not want people coming to A&E if they don’t have to.  Sometimes they have to divert patients to neighbouring hospitals.