Delayed admission to A&E, almost 5,000 patients died in three years

Wednesday 11th December 2019 07:37 EST
 
 

A study by leading NHS doctors has revealed that almost 5,500 patients have died over the past three years because they have spent so long on a trolley in an A&E unit waiting for a bed in overcrowded hospitals. Their conclusion that long delays finding spare beds is costing patients’ lives has emerged as Boris Johnson comes under mounting pressure over the fragile state of the NHS.

In all 5,449 people have lost their lives since 2016 as a direct result of waiting anywhere between six hours and 11 hours. It found that those deaths represent the total “estimated attributable mortality” from the delays.

The Patients Association has called these findings “deeply shocking and very worrying” and blamed the deaths on underfunding of the NHS.

The research, by Dr Chris Moulton and Dr Cliff Mann, found that 960 out of 79,228 patients who had to wait about six hours died as a direct result of the delay.

This means that one in every 83 people who have to wait that long to be admitted will die as a direct result of the delay in them starting specialist care for their condition, they said in their research, as yet to be published.

Similarly, 855 people died over the past three years because they waited about seven hours, as did 636 others who faced delays of at least 11 hours. An NHS spokesperson said, 

“Actually, the latest official figures show that your chances of dying if you are admitted to hospital are lower than they have been at any time in the last five years despite patients increasingly being older and sicker.

“Doctors are also concerned that patients who have to wait with ambulance crews outside A&E units, because staff are too busy to accept them, are at risk. It emerged last week that a man suffered a cardiac arrest and died after waiting for an hour in the back of an ambulance outside Worcestershire Royal hospital.

Less than three-quarters (74.5%) of people who sought care at A&E unit in England in October were treated and then discharged, admitted or transferred within four hours – the smallest proportion since the target was introduced in 2004.

That is far below the 95% of patients that ministers and NHS chiefs say should be dealt with by A&E staff within four hours.

The grim statistics are likely to add to growing fears in the NHS that services could really struggle to cope this coming winter with the annual spike in demand, especially if there is a major flu outbreak and with snow already falling in parts of England. Many hospitals are also finding it increasingly difficult to respond to a fast-growing need for both urgent and non-urgent care because at least a third of doctors have begun working fewer shifts as a result of a continuing dispute over their pensions.

Thursday’s figures – the last before the general election on 12 December – showed that of the 1,376,282 people who attended a hospital-based A&E in October 908,168 were seen within four hours but 311,513 were not. The data is slightly incomplete because figures from 14 NHS trusts which are taking part in a trial of a new measurement of A&E waiting times were not included.


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