Will Forster Demands Emergency Measures this Winter Following 300% Surge in Waits of 12 Hours or More

Will Forster, Liberal Democrat MP for Woking, has exposed the revelation that there have been 316 waits of 12 hours or longer for admissions from A&E at Ashford and St Peter's Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust in June and July. A decade ago, exactly no one had to wait this long. 

The data reported so far on the summer months shows an alarming surge in the number of patients waiting over 12 hours from when a decision to admit a patient is made to that patient actually being admitted. 

During the 2015 summer period no ‘trolley waits’ were recorded at Ashford and St Peter’s, with only 47 recorded across England as a whole. The 316 waits recorded locally this year is reflective of a national pattern of spiralling A&E to hospital admission times. 

Mr Forster first raised this crisis in July, when he spoke in the House of Commons to demand a government investigation into why Woking residents are facing such lengthy and unreasonable waiting times.  

The speech cited data that revealed in June, only 66% of patients admitted to Woking’s local A&E at St Peter’s Hospital were seen within four hours – far below both the national target and the national average of 76%.   

These long delays can have deadly consequences. Analysis by the Royal College of Emergency Medicine has previously stated that 16,600 deaths were linked to long A&E waits before admission in 2024. 

Mr Forster said that the annual ‘winter crisis’ in the NHS had now turned into a “permacrisis”:   

“It’s evident that local health services are now buckling under pressure all year round, not just in winter.  

“We need an emergency package of measures to protect patients and their families from further agony this winter and to relieve the pressure on stretched A&E waiting rooms. 

“The Conservative party’s shameful neglect of local health services is what brought us to this point. However, this Labour government needs to realise that unless Ministers take urgent action, we could be sleepwalking towards disaster this winter. 

Mr Forster added that the measures he would like to see include increasing vaccine uptake for seasonal illnesses, increasing access to pharmacies and by expanding the number of out-of-hours GPs. 

ENDS 

Notes to Editors: 

The NHS figures can be found here. 

Research by the Royal College of Emergency Medicine can be found here. 

A video of Will speaking in the House of Commons to demand a Government investigation can be found here.