July 2022 saw almost 30,000 patients face waits of more than 12 hours to be admitted to hospital, according to figures published by the NHS.
The month also saw the highest number of callouts for life-threatening conditions on record, with 85,000 calls into emergency services being rated category one (usually reserved for conditions such as cardiac arrests and ceased breathing).
Elsewhere, six in every 10 NHS patients faced delays in being discharged from hospital despite being able to leave. On average over July 2022, 12,900 patients per day spent more time in hospital than required, an increase of 11 per cent on June’s figures.
The King’s Fund think tank’s chief executive Richard Murray said that the pressure on hospitals was “symptomatic” of pressure being felt across the entirety of health and social care.
Murray said: “Despite record high temperatures outside, today’s NHS figures are more like those of a health service stuck in the depths of a particularly dire winter. In July this year, nearly 30,000 emergency patients waited more than 12 hours to be admitted to hospital, a huge increase from the pre-pandemic level of just 450 in July 2019.
“At the end of July, 13,014 people were still in hospital beds despite being medically fit to be discharged, often due to a lack of available social care support. The challenges affecting the NHS cannot be solved without addressing the issues in social care.”
Murray also referenced the ongoing Conservative leadership race and the lack of attention on the crisis facing the NHS in Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss’ respective campaigns.
He added: “The intense pressure on NHS and social care services has barely featured in the Conservative party leadership race, yet the new prime minister will inherit a health and care system in a state of steady crisis. Not long after Liz Truss or Rishi Sunak enters 10 Downing Street, winter will really start to bite and without urgent action we can expect ambulance delays to get even longer and more and more people to be stuck waiting in overcrowded A&E departments.
“Ensuring patients can access the care they need will require urgent and sustained action. If the next prime minister fails to prioritise action to shore up health and care services, they can expect the NHS and social care to slide even deeper into crisis.”
Jessica Morris, a fellow of the Nuffield Trust health charity, said that the latest NHS performance figures were indicative that the total waiting list is only increasing.
Morris said: “Long waits are now commonplace across the health and care system. Over 350,000 people have been waiting over one year for planned care, representing one in 20 people on the waiting list.
“Before the pandemic, less than 2,000 people were waiting over a year. Staffing shortages and ongoing pressure from Covid-19, and a broken and overstretched care system, continue to slow down how quickly the NHS can work through this major backlog.”
Photo by John Cameron on Unsplash
