In the first quarter of 2021/2022 in England 83.4 percent of patients who attended A&E were admitted, transferred or discharged within four hours. This is below the NHS’s target that 95 percent of attendees to A&E should be seen within four hours. Since 2011, the share of patients seen within four hours has been declining. In addition, since 2016 there has been a marked increase in examples of patients waiting for more than twelve hours at A&E to be admitted, with a recorded high of 7,161 individuals in 2020/21 third quarter.

The reasons behind the increased waiting times and the missed treatment targets could be partially explained by the increased number of people attending A&E. There were over 6.1 million attendances to the A&E department in England in the first quarter of 2021/22. This figure has been increasing since 2012, which means there is a greater strain on emergency services across the country.

So, situations like the one in this video happened to 7,161 people, out 6.1 million. In other words, if this happens to you, you are very unlucky.