500k patients waited over 12 hours to receive emergency care in England in last year

A QUARTER of a million patients waited over 12 hours to receive emergency care in England this past year.

The shocking stat is the worst for A&E departments since records began.

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In another bleak first, 1.5 million Brits waited longer than the recommended four hours for urgent NHS treatment.

The health service target hasn’t been hit since 2015.

Patients have been left lying on trolley beds in overcrowded corridors as the staffing and backlog crises in the NHS hit boiling point.

Just 72 people waited more than 12 hours to be admitted to A&E in September 2011.

But this month alone that number ballooned to 32,776.

Shadow Health Secretary Wes Streeting said: “24 hours in A&E isn’t just a TV programme, it’s the reality for patients after 12 years of the Conservatives.

“It is unsafe and unacceptable to leave patients waiting so long, often in pain and agony.

“The longer we give the Conservatives in office, the longer patients will wait.”

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: “No-one should have to wait longer than necessary to access urgent and emergency care.

“We are providing an extra £500 million to speed up discharge and free up hospital beds, and are taking action to reduce waits in A&E and getting ambulances quickly back out on the road.”