The Royal College of Emergency Medicine (RCEM) has warned that long waiting times in emergency rooms could be responsible for some 23,000 “excessive patient deaths” last year.
The College of Medicine said that by 2022 nearly 1.66 million people in England will have to wait more than 12 hours in the emergency room from the moment they arrive, using data obtained through a freedom of information request from NHS Digital.
He warned that long waits “could be disastrous for patient safety and mortality.”
The official figures released by NHS England only measure the waiting time from the decision to admit them to the time they are seen. Official figures show that 347,703 patients waited 12 hours after the decision to be admitted was made.
The RCEM found that by 2022, 1,656,206 patients in England will wait 12 hours or more from arrival at the emergency department to admission, transfer or discharge.
Dr. Adrian Boyle, president of RCEM, said: “These data are shocking, but not surprising.
“Long waiting times are associated with serious injuries and patient deaths – the scale shown here for 2022 is deeply worrying.
“The data shows how much transparent numbers are needed.”
The Department of Health and Human Services and NHS England will start releasing regular 12-hour data from the time you arrive at the emergency room from April this year, he said.
Dr. Boyle said that “honesty with data will be a service to patients and staff” but added that “staff, beds and resources” will be needed to transform the emergency department system.
A spokesman for NHS England said the cause of the excess deaths was due to “a number of different factors”, so attributing the deaths to just one factor was “highly unlikely to give a complete or reliable picture”.
They said: “The highlighted data is for time in the ED, not expectations, and covers a year in which the NHS had a record four-month ED attendance.
“NHS is focused on improving the flow of patients through emergency departments and increasing the number of patients who are discharged when they are medically ready.”
A spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services said: “There are many factors that contribute to increased mortality and it is important not to tie them to one cause.
“However, no one should wait longer than necessary to access emergency and emergency care, and the significant improvement in performance over the past month is encouraging, including across all categories of ambulance and emergency department response times.”
Source: I News
I’m Raymond Molina, a professional writer and journalist with over 5 years of experience in the media industry. I currently work for 24 News Reporters, where I write for the health section of their news website. In my role, I am responsible for researching and writing stories on current health trends and issues. My articles are often seen as thought-provoking pieces that provide valuable insight into the state of society’s wellbeing.