Nearly 50,000 A&E patients had ‘trolley waits’ of 24 hours or more last year
20 April 2025, 23:00
At least 49,000 A&E visits last year saw patients wait 24 hours or more for a hospital bed – with people aged 65 or over accounting for almost 70% of cases, the Liberal Democrats have said.
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Some patients went 10 days before getting a space on a ward, according to party analysis of data provided by 54 trusts in England in response to Freedom of Information requests.
Of the 48,830 “trolley waits” of 24 hours or longer in 2024, 33,413 were experienced by people aged 65 or over, the Lib Dems said.
A “trolley wait” refers to the time it takes for a patient to be transferred to a ward after a decision has been taken to admit them to hospital.
The Lib Dems said the real number of 24-hour cases was likely to be far higher because only 54 out of 141 trusts had provided full data.
East Kent’s NHS trust saw the highest number of day or longer trolley waits last year at 8,916, up from 30 in 2019 – pre-pandemic – followed by Liverpool University Hospitals Trust with 4,315, up from 10 in 2019, the party said.
The party is calling for a new team of “super-heads” made up of experienced NHS bosses who would go into struggling trusts and use their expertise to bring them up to standard.
The Royal College of Nursing said the figures “only begin to scratch the surface” of a “crisis in corridor care” and that declining recruitment in nursing was adding to the problem.
“The NHS and the UK Government must begin to disclose the true scale of the problem if they’re serious about eradicating it,” general secretary and chief executive of the union Professor Nicola Ranger said.
“A single patient waiting for more than 24 hours is unacceptable, tens of thousands waiting shows why corridor care must be eradicated. It is undignified and unsafe, and now a year-round crisis.
“Nursing staff are the key to solving the crisis in corridor care. They deal with the devastating consequences of treating patients on corridors every single day.”
The Government has made cutting NHS waiting lists one of its key missions and says it has taken action to protect A&E, including through vaccine delivery and by ending planned strikes with an improved pay deal for doctors.
A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: “No patient should have to spend 24 hours in A&E waiting to be admitted to a ward. We are determined to end the annual winter crisis in urgent care and to cut waiting lists for emergency care, but it will take time.
“We have taken action to protect A&E departments, introducing the new RSV vaccine, delivering more than 27 million Covid and flu vaccines and ending the strikes so staff were on the front line not the picket line for the first winter in three years. This work continues to ensure patients are treated quickly.
“We are fundamentally reforming the NHS as part of our Plan for Change, providing more care in the community, so fewer patients have to go to A&E, and those who do are treated faster and with dignity.”
Lib Dem health and social care spokeswoman Helen Morgan said: “The least patients deserve is the dignity to be treated in an appropriate area. Not the ramshackle waiting rooms and corridors that far too many have to suffer through for hours.
“That is why the Government must ensure that this is the last winter crisis anyone will experience and end corridor care by the end of this Parliament.
“The Conservatives’ beyond-shameful neglect brought us to this point but the Labour government’s approach of sitting on its hands and hoping it all gets better has not survived contact with reality.”
A spokesperson for East Kent Hospitals Trust said: “We have seen increased attendances across our three main hospitals and we are sorry that patients are waiting longer than we would like in our emergency departments.”
University Hospitals of Liverpool Group has been contacted for comment.
