‘Excess deaths’ due to A&E delays rise by nearly a third in one year

Long waits in A&E departments may have caused around 30,000 ‘excess deaths’ last year, according to new estimates.

Using a methodology backed by experts, HSJ analysis of official data has produced an estimate of 29,145 ‘excess deaths’ related to long accident and emergency delays in 2022-23, up from 22,175 in 2021-22, and 9,783 related deaths in 2020-21.

For the first time, the analysis has also produced estimates of excess mortality related to long A&E delays for every acute trust.

The data suggests the rate of excess deaths from 2022-23 has so far continued into 2023-24.

The analysis followed a methodology used in a peer-reviewed study published in the Emergency Medicine Journal, which found delays to hospital admission for patients of more than five hours from time of arrival at A&E were associated with an increase in all-cause mortality within 30 days.

Data scientist Steve Black, one of the authors of the EMJ study, said: “Long waits in A&E should never happen and 12-hour waits should be something like a never event. They should be intolerable anywhere. If we want to fix them it’s helpful to know which trusts have the worst problems with long waits.”

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Source: HSJ, 7 November 2023