4,961 waited more than 4 hours for emergency care at East Surrey Hospital last month

December’s figures from the NHS reveal that 4.961 people had to wait more than four hours for emergency care at A&Es in Surrey and Sussex Healthcare NHS Trust. Shockingly, 574 people locally had to wait more than 12 hours to be admitted to accident and emergency. Just 54.7% of patients admitted to A&E in the area were seen within 4 hours – the NHS says that 95% of patients should be admitted, transferred, or discharged in that time.

Accident and emergency departments across the country are facing huge pressures. As former Culture Secretary, Nadine Dorries, admitted, a decade of Conservative mismanagement left the health service “wanting and inadequate” when the pandemic struck.

There are now also 6.73 million people on the NHS waiting list in England as of June 2022. This is the highest ever recorded. At the outbreak of the Covid pandemic, following a decade of Tory mismanagement there were 4.4 million people on the NHS waiting list in England, then a record high. Nationally, the standard of 92% of people seen within 18 weeks of a referral has not been met since 2016. Now, 1 in every 9 people in England are on the NHS waiting list.

The NHS went into the latest wave of Covid infections with the longest waiting list ever, understaffed and overstretched and none of their decisions over the years since have made things any better. In 1997, Labour saved the NHS after almost two-decades of Conservative mismanagement, only a Labour Government at the next General Election can rescue the NHS again.