When did the A&E winter crisis become the norm?

Not a winter goes past without hospitals overflowing; the situation is so predictable it deserves a better word than ‘crisis’. Yet for patients and staff the sense of crisis is real, and connoisseurs of this annual event say that this year’s is especially dire. 

Health Secretary Wes Streeting has spoken of his distress and shame, saying the state of A&Es breaks his heart. Hospital and ambulance trusts have been declaring critical incidents – as they do every winter. The real problem is not that this year is merely worse than the last, it’s the trajectory. Something is rotten in the state of our healthcare.

Back in early 2014, 150 people waited more than twelve hours in A&E for a bed. By the start of 2024, the number was 150,000. These delays matter. They worsen distress and add indignity and, worse still, they cost lives.