NHS in crisis as 500 people die every week due to 'killer' emergency care delays

The president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, Dr Adrian Boyle, has said the NHS 'can't go on like this and 'it's dangerous and outraged "as he issued a grim warning to Tory Ministers

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Dr Adrian Boyle talks about the causes of long NHS waiting times

Hundreds of patients are dying unnecessarily as a bad flu season worsens systemic problems in the NHS, warns director of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, Dr Adrian Boyle.

Another doctor spoke of 'Dickens overcrowding' amid the winter NHS emergency care crisis.

Dr Boyle said this winter will likely be the worst on record for A&E wait times as hospitals are hit with increasing demand from influenza, Covid and Strep A.

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He added: "We believe that between 300 and 500 people die from delays and urgent and emergency care issues every week. We need to get this under control. December wait [yet to be released] aren't the worst we've seen.

"We need to increase our capacity, make sure there are alternative ways so people aren't just being directed to the ambulance service and the emergency department."

A patient spent 99 hours waiting for a bed last week at Great Western Hospital in Swindon, Wilts, while elsewhere parents said sick children had to sleep on chairs.

Dr Adrian Boyle of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine (

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A clinician at Great Western Hospital said, "We are broken and no one is listening to us." The hospital's chief medical officer, Jon Westbrook, told staff in a leaked email, "We are seeing case numbers and [diseases] that we have never seen before in our clinical careers." /p>

A South West NHS worker told the Sunday Times: 'There is not enough oxygen in the cylinders to treat patients in the hallways, ambulances and in our walk-in area at A&E."

In the children's emergency department at John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford, a three-year-old girl was photographed curled up in a chair to sleep after hours of waiting.

Dad Tom Hook called it "a broken system".