One in 10 A&E patients waited over 12 hours in 2025

One in ten patients who attended major emergency units in England last year spent more than 12 hours there, according to BBC analysis.

In 2025, 1.75 million patients waited this long to be treated and discharged or find a bed in a ward – barely better than in 2024.

It comes as the Royal College of Nursing warned that long waits and care in corridors – where patients are left for hours in makeshift areas – were having a devastating impact.

The union has published testimonies from members across the UK describing unsafe and substandard care, with one nurse saying animals were treated better at vets.

The government said this was unacceptable, but it was still grappling with the legacy it had inherited.

Health Secretary Wes Streeting admitted corridor care remained a problem, saying the NHS was “not up to the task”.

“This should never be normalized,” he added.

He said he was committed to ending the practice before the end of the legislature and would soon begin publishing data on it to ensure transparency.

But he said that on some measures, such as ambulance response times, there had been an improvement from last year.

And in other areas of care, he said patients were “starting to feel the difference”, highlighting progress on the hospital waiting list.

Regarding care in hallways, MRC members described feeling ashamed and embarrassed by the situation, saying patients were crowded into hallways and cared for in kitchens, dining rooms, and side rooms.

In one case, a nurse reported that a patient died after choking undetected in a hallway, while others said they had to hold sheets around patients while they performed intimate procedures.

A nurse from the North West of England said: ‘It breaks my heart to be at work and see a patient, usually elderly, in the corridor and come back two days later and they are still there.’

Another from the South West described the system as failing and patients having to endure a “kind of torture”, while another nurse added: “We wouldn’t treat animals like that in a veterinary practice, so why in a hospital?”

RCN general secretary Professor Nicola Ranger said the evidence showed the “devastating human consequences” of the pressures on hospitals.

She was speaking after a series of hospitals declared critical incidents in the first two weeks of the new year.

At one – Nottingham University Hospital – managers warned there were patients in corridors and apologized for “significant and unacceptable delays” in the emergency room.

The BBC has witnessed the impact of these pressures. This month our crews filmed inside the Leicester Royal Infirmary where staff described “relentless pressure” and the daily challenge of “maintaining the dignity of a patient in a corridor”.

Doctors and nurses told the BBC they were struggling to find beds for some of the hospital’s most vulnerable patients, with elderly people often left waiting overnight on plastic chairs for eight or nine hours.

Among them was Patricia, in her seventies, who had fallen and was suffering from severe chest pain. She spent nine hours waiting on a chair.

She said she felt “so tired” and “confused about what was going on.”

Another patient, Ann, arrived by ambulance and was being treated for an infection and dehydration. She had been waiting for a bed in a room for 48 hours.

Although she praised the care she received, specialized staff would have to go to the emergency room to supervise her rehabilitation because no suitable bed was available.

“This is not the level of care we want to provide,” said emergency department consultant Scott Knapp.

Monthly 12-hour wait data is published by NHS England. In 2024, 10.5% of patients waited 12 hours or more in major emergency units from arrival to the time they were treated and released or found a bed on a ward if they needed to be admitted. In 2025, it was 10.1%.

Expectations are measured slightly differently elsewhere in the UK, but other countries also have problems.

Figures have also been released on the waiting list for planned hospital treatments, such as knee and hip operations.

At the end of November, 7.31 million patients were on the waiting list – compared to 7.4 million the previous month – the lowest level since February 2023.

And NHS England has published an evaluation of its program to support areas with the highest rates of economic inactivity.

NHS trusts in the 20 areas with the highest unemployment have been given extra support with specialist teams of doctors and managers sent to try to reduce the waiting list.

Over the past year, the waiting list has decreased by 4.2%, three times faster than elsewhere.