Accident & Emergency NHS personnel are facing pressures akin to those experienced “during the height of the pandemic”, a health leader has cautioned, as emergency departments record their busiest year to date.
NHS national medical director Professor Sir Stephen Powis indicated that it is challenging to assess just “how difficult the current situation is for frontline staff”.
He mentioned that some A&E employees expressed that “their workdays feel reminiscent of certain days we encountered during the peak of the pandemic”.
This statement aligns with data revealing that A&E sectors and ambulance crews have recorded their busiest operational year, while flu continues to exert stress on hospitals as the new year approaches.
The quantity of flu patients hospitalized in England keeps rising and is almost five times greater than at the beginning of December, according to NHS figures published on Thursday.
An average of 5,408 individuals with flu occupied hospital beds in England each day during the previous week, a 21% increase from the preceding week and surpassing the figures from the same time in the previous two winters.
In addition, ambulance teams across England dealt with 8.9 million incidents last year, a rise from 8.35 million in 2023.
The aggregate number of A&E visits in 2024 reached 27.4 million, including 2.35 million in the past month alone.
For all but the most critical cases, ambulance response times were longer in December 2024 than they were in December 2023.
‘Hospitals are at capacity’
Sir Stephen remarked: “It is evident that hospitals are experiencing extraordinary pressure as this new year begins, with enormous demand originating from the ongoing cold weather and respiratory illnesses such as flu—all compounded by 2024 being the busiest year recorded for A&E and ambulance teams.”
He further stated that some hospitals were “at capacity”.
This follows the declaration of critical incidents by approximately 20 NHS trusts across England due to exceptionally high demand.
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The waiting list for non-urgent medical procedures has decreased to its lowest level in one and a half years, according to separate statistics.
An estimated 7.48 million procedures, affecting 6.28 million patients, were pending at the end of November—a drop from 7.54 million procedures and 6.34 million patients at the end of October.
The list reached an all-time high in September 2023 with 7.77 million procedures, involving 6.50 million patients, awaiting action.
While levels of RSV among hospitalized children have slightly lowered compared to the previous week, they still exceed the figures recorded at the same time in the last two years.
Similarly, an average of 626 hospital beds in England were occupied daily last week by patients exhibiting norovirus-like symptoms or experiencing diarrhoea and vomiting, which marked an increase from the previous week and the corresponding time in both prior winters.
