Excess mortality in emergency departments in England
Long wait times are contributing to unnecessary deaths Prolonged waits in emergency departments have become a growing problem in England. In 2010, emergency departments had virtually no 12 hour waits, and only 2% of attendances exceeded the four hour target. By the year to March 2025, over 40% of patients waited more than four hours, and over 10%—around 1.7 million people—waited longer than 12 hours.1 The four hour standard introduced in the UK in 2002 required at least 98% of patients attending emergency departments to be admitted, transferred, or discharged within four hours of arrival. Many clinicians initially viewed it as an arbitrary target disconnected from patient outcomes. This perception shifted when the standard was successfully met and sustained nationwide from 2005 to 2010.2 However, a change in government priorities in 2010, when the four hour target was downgraded from 98% to 95% and no longer included as a key performance metric for hospital leaders, contributed to a de
