Our Shocking A&E waits

The number of patients waiting more than four hours in the University Hospitals of Derby and Burton’s A&Es has risen by 47% compared with four years ago, Liberal Democrat analysis of House of Commons Library research reveals.

The data showed that 106687 people waited over four hours in 2023, a 47% increase on 2019.

The data also revealed that the number of patients who waited over 12 hours in A&Es  rose from 73 in 2019 to 5676 in 2023, a nearly 80 fold increase. 

In England as a whole, there were nearly 6.5 million waits of over four hours in 2023, up nearly 3 million since 2019.

Long waits are not just an inconvenience; they are dangerous. Conditions can worsen significantly for patients who are not promptly seen, and the Royal College of Emergency Medicine has estimated that there were 23,003 excess patient deaths in England in 2022 associated with long waits.

The Liberal Democrats are calling on the government to reverse its near £5 billion of real terms cuts to NHS funding over this year and next, and invest more in local health services including A&E. 

It is simply unthinkable that Rishi Sunak is now choosing to slash funding for the NHS further, while appalling figures like this are emerging. This will just pour petrol on the flames of the NHS crisis.