Nearly 50,000 A&E ‘trolley waits’ of 24 hours or more recorded last year – data

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 dis...
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