Corridor care: Elderly patients waiting over five days on hospital trolleys

EMBARGO: 22.30 Thursday 25th April

• Close to 100,000 elderly patients waited over 12 hours on trolleys in A&E last year, a 25-fold increase since 2019

• 16 NHS trusts had patients left waiting in hospital corridors for two days or more

• Almost every NHS trust has seen an increase in average A&E trolley waits since 2019

• Elderly patients are waiting for an average of over seven-hours on a trolley in A&Es - an hour longer than the average wait for all patients

• Liberal Democrat Leader Ed Davey warns of “corridor care crisis” and calls for boost to hospital beds

Some elderly patients were left waiting up to five days on trolleys in A&E last year, shocking figures uncovered by the Liberal Democrats have shown.  

The data, obtained through Freedom of Information requests, shows that last year almost 100,000 elderly patients in England waited 12 hours or more in A&E corridors before being admitted to a hospital ward. This is a staggering 25-fold increase in 12-hour trolley waits for over 65s since 2019. Two-thirds of the 145,800 patients who faced 12-hour trolley waits last year were aged 65 or more, showing that elderly patients are being particularly impacted by the “corridor care crisis.” The Liberal Democrats received responses from 48 of 140 NHS hospital trusts, meaning the true numbers are likely to be far higher. 

45 of the 48 Trusts that responded recorded a rise in the number of pensioners waiting for 12-hours or more in hospital corridors since 2019 with nearly half (45%) reporting an over tenfold or 1000% spike. University Hospitals Birmingham had 11,539 elderly patients facing 12-hour or more trolley waits last year, more than anywhere else in the country and up from just 491 in 2019. 16 of the NHS trusts which provided data had elderly patients who had been left waiting at least two days on A&E corridors before being admitted.  In one shocking case, an elderly patient at Great Western Hospital waited 131-hours, or five-and-a-half days, to be admitted to hospital after a decision to admit.  

The figures also show that elderly patients are facing longer average trolley waits, with an average wait of 7 hours in 2023 compared to 6 hours for all patients. Over seven in 10 of the Trusts which responded had longer average waits for pensioners than their average for all patients. 

Research has found that long waits in A&E can have a serious impact on patients’ health and can even be deadly. Earlier this month, the Royal College of Emergency Medicine estimated that there were more than 268 excess deaths a week related to waits of 12-hours or longer in A&E last year.

The Liberal Democrats are calling for urgent investment in frontline care, including rolling out new fully staffed beds into hospitals to help clear backlogs and reduce trolley wait times. The party is also calling for a comprehensive package of social care reforms to ensure people are not stuck in hospital longer than they need to be.

Liberal Democrat Leader Ed Davey said:

“These shocking figures reveal a corridor care crisis, with elderly patients left waiting for days in A&E corridors to get the treatment they need.

“It is heart-breaking to think that so many older people are being forced to wait so long on hospital corridors, many in pain, because there aren’t enough beds available. We know that long A&E waits are not just distressing for patients but can have a serious impact on their health.

“Years of neglect under this Conservative government have turned our A&E departments into centres of chaos and misery. We urgently need to invest in emergency care and increase the number of hospital beds, to make sure no patient is left waiting in corridors for days on end.”

ENDS

Notes to Editors:

The FOI data can be found here. A “trolley wait” is the time between when a doctor in A&E decides that a patient's condition is serious enough that they need to be admitted to hospital for further treatment and when the patient is actually admitted. Many of these patients will already have waited several hours at A&E before getting that assessment. Definition here.

RCEM excess death research can be found here.

Text of FOI questions:

The number and percentage of patients who had to wait between four and twelve hours from decision-to-admit at A&E to hospital ward admission at your trust in each of the calendar years a) 2023, b) 2022, c) 2021, d) 2020, e) 2019 broken down by total number, and the number of those 65 and over

The number and percentage of patients who had to wait more twelve hours from decision-to-admit at A&E to hospital ward admission at your trust in each of the calendar years a) 2023, b) 2022, c) 2021, d) 2020, e) 2019 broken down by total number, and the number of those 65 and over

The average wait time for patients from decision-to-admit at A&E to hospital ward admission at your trust in each of the calendar years a) 2023, b) 2022, c) 2021, d) 2020, e) 2019 broken down by total number, and the number of those 65 and over

The longest wait time for patients from decision-to-admit at A&E to hospital ward admission at your trust in each of the calendar years a) 2023, b) 2022, c) 2021, d) 2020, e) 2019 broken down by total number, and the number of those 65 and over