The number of patients stuck on a hospital trolley for 12 hours or more because of a shortage of beds in the NHS in England has soared to a record high – while some who are ready to leave hospital are waiting for more than six months to get a place in social care, official data has revealed.
The worsening delays getting into and out of hospital point to “a problem at the front and the back door of the NHS”, according to the Liberal Democrats, who have warned the health system has not significantly improved since Labour took power.
Government “chaos” and leadership chatter – including around the Health Secretary, Wes Streeting – have hindered efforts to fix the NHS, the party’s health spokesperson Helen Morgan told The i Paper.
Analysis of statistics published by the health service shows that in the first 10 months of 2025, a total of 452,595 patients in England faced a wait of at least 12 hours between the decision to admit them to A&E, and actually being admitted.
You are now 400 times more likely to suffer that experience than a decade ago, when such delays were vanishingly rare – just 1,148 people were stuck on a trolley for 12 hours in the equivalent period of 2015.
It was in 2022, the first full year after the height of the Covid pandemic, when numbers leapt upwards and they have continued to increase each year since.
Freedom of information requests to two dozen English NHS trusts found a similar increase in the delays to discharge from hospitals, when a patient is deemed medically fit to leave but cannot be moved because of a lack of local capacity in adult social care.
Multiple trusts reported having patients waiting four months or more to be discharged, with the longest delay of all clocking in at 268 days – nearly nine months.
Morgan, the MP for North Shropshire, warned: “The reason people are stuck on corridors waiting to be admitted is because there aren’t enough beds available in the hospital. And one of the reasons that there aren’t enough beds available in the hospital is because people aren’t being discharged into social care or set-down care of some description, and that’s partly because there aren’t enough social care packages available, and partly because the way the hospital operates isn’t always optimal as well.
“And then, if you look at the front door, we’ve got people struggling to access a GP and turning up at A&E when it isn’t an accident or an emergency, but because they haven’t really got anywhere else to go.”
She said that the Government had made “some improvement on elective care waiting lists” – the main target set by Sir Keir Starmer – but added: “It’s pretty slim. I’m not sure that when you knock on people’s doors, that they notice that.” The current overall waiting list for routine treatment in England is around 7.4 million.
At the last general election, the Lib Dems focused on Conservative-held seats in wealthy areas of England and were widely seen as helping Labour with a tacit pact so the parties rarely went head-to-head. Sir Ed Davey’s MPs would heavily criticise the Tory legacy in government without being as critical of Starmer’s plans.
Morgan claimed, however, that Labour’s record since the election had let voters down. She said: “I think we all thought that a change of government would at least bring a fresh pair of eyes – the Conservatives were really clearly out of ideas – and that there would be a positive change in many aspects of government. But it has been a huge disappointment.
“You know, Labour promised that they would deal with the NHS. We’re going into the second winter since they were in charge with people on hospital corridors with no care, not being able to get to the loo sometimes; some people have died on corridors. That’s pretty unacceptable.”
She added: “You can’t just blame the previous lot for ever. You have to come up with a plan.”
Promises to overhaul social care through a cross-party independent commission have only been “lip service”, Morgan claimed, with just one meeting of the different parties held so far and no more scheduled for the new year.
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She said: “I just don’t think there is a joined-up plan. It’s chaotic, isn’t it? You know, we’ve got all this sort of background noise about whether Wes Streeing is planning a leadership bid.”
A spokesperson for the Department of Health said: “No one should receive care in a corridor – the situation we inherited is unacceptable and undignified, and we are determined to end it. Although things are tough right now, our investment and modernisation are making a difference. Compared to last year, more patients are being seen within four hours of arriving at A&E, and ambulance response times are 10 minutes faster for conditions like stroke or chest pain.
“This winter, we are investing almost £450m to expand same day and urgent care services, put new ambulances on the road, deliver new mental health crisis centres and we have vaccinated hundreds of thousands more people with flu jabs compared to last year.”
An independent commission on adult social care, led by Baroness Casey, will make interim recommendations on improving standards and strengthening accountability next year, with a full report due in 2028.
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