Another winter of discontent looms for NHS urgent and emergency care

Abstract

With a sense of inevitability and clear predictability, urgent and emergency care in the UK is rapidly heading into another winter of discontent. We are seeing signs that we will experience another winter of patients facing prolonged waits to access emergency care. The result will be patient harm, corridor care in emergency departments and acute medical units, and delays in ambulance response times.1 Each of these metrics have deteriorated over the past decade, with politicians failing to understand and deliver on the priorities that could reverse this decline. Hospital occupancy levels remain dangerously high.2 This leaves no …