Worrying winter performance figures as 12 hour trolley waits top the thousands

Responding to NHS England’s Combined Performance Summary and Winter Situation Reports, Nuffield Trust Chief Economist Professor John Appleby said:

“These would be dire performance figures for any December but what’s worrying is that we are still awaiting the truly cold winter weather that we know will plunge the NHS into further problems.

“Once a rare and almost unthinkable event, in December over two thousand people waited more than 12 hours on a trolley to be admitted to a bed on a hospital ward. Last month also saw over 98,000 people waiting more than four hours on a trolley. We warned this could top 100,000 as winter goes on and at this rate it could get even worse. Missed targets are now the norm with more than one in five people attending A&E waiting longer than four hours to be admitted to hospital, transferred or discharged home.

“This pressure is spreading out across the entire system. 2020 started with over 18,000 ambulance handover delays, where paramedics are desperately trying to get patients in need of treatment into the hospital before heading out to their next call.

“The Government has started to put in a lot of extra money for the NHS from last April, but this shows just how long it is going to take for it to be felt by patients and staff.”