The NHS England have published their statistics and they show that they have hit their worst level yet in terms of A&E waiting hours. The number of those waiting for emergency treatment for over 4 hours at a time has increased by over 15,000 since the previous month. The amount of people who were stuck on trolleys for 12 hours or more also increased too. At the end of the day, no politician wants to see a patient that is absolutely marooned on a trolley for more than 12 hours. This is exactly what is happening right now and it’s not acceptable at all. If you work in a nursing recruitment agency then you will know what a daunting statistic this is as so many nurses are so overworked. If you are part of a nurse agency then you will also know that those who do go to A&E are actually very sick, and that providing care is hard enough already. On top of that, they are also being forced to treat patients on chairs, on trolleys and even in makeshift areas of a hospital.

It’s really not a surprise that they don’t have enough beds when you look at the fact that they have 43,000 vacant positions in the UK. This is the highest number that the NHS have ever seen. The report is showing how much the government need to tackle the nursing crisis and it is also showing that they need to be investing much more in the next generation of nurses. If they don’t then the same problem is going to happen again and again, and this is not acceptable to say the least. Something needs to be done, and it needs to be done now.