Record Summer A&E Waits

Few issues demonstrate the scale of the challenge facing our NHS more clearly than the continued failure to bring down A&E waiting times. 

In 2025, more than 1,300 patients a month in England died needlessly due to long A&E waits as images of ambulances queuing outside hospitals and corridors being used to treat patients on trolleys has become “a source of national shame.” 

Now, new NHS figures released yesterday show departments across the country remain in deep distress. In June and July, 302,985 people waited 12+ hours to be admitted, with more than 71,000 instances of corridor care across A&E departments in July alone.  

That is the worst summer on record.  

As I wrote in May, these figures reflect a reality that is far too familiar for families across Newbury and West Berkshire: a corridor care crisis that sees loved ones being cared for in chairs, left for hours on end with no food and water, while NHS staff are put in impossible situations, doing everything they can to provide dignified care in conditions that simply aren't fit for patients or staff. 

This is a visible and tragic symptom of a health service that is struggling under years of chronic mismanagement.  

Reassuringly, according to NHS data, no patients were recorded as receiving corridor care at the Royal Berkshire Hospital across June and July. That is a testament to the outstanding work of NHS staff across our area, alongside crucial community services such as West Berkshire Community Hospital, Medwell Chemist, Kintbury Surgery, and many, many others that help keep people well and ease pressure on hospitals. 

However, in a well-functioning health service, that figure should be unthinkable everywhere. 

While years of Conservative mismanagement helped create this crisis, the Government has not moved quickly enough to deliver the reforms patients and staff need. Before another difficult winter, ministers need to take a different approach. 

Earlier this year, the Liberal Democrats set out our plan to end these unacceptable waits, including a new legal duty to ensure patients are admitted to A&E within 12 hours alongside an injection of £1.5bn to make 6,000 extra hospital beds available each day. 

Crucially, we cannot solve this crisis by focusing on hospitals alone. We must reshape social care and guarantee provision of “step down” care so patients can be discharged without delay. We know there is unused capacity in the care sector, but targeted funding, coordination, and direction has been missing for many years.  

With fresh cross-party momentum behind social care reform, I will continue working with colleagues from across Parliament to push for the changes patients and NHS staff deserve. People across Newbury and West Berkshire should be able to rely on a health service that is there when they need it, delivering timely, high-quality care close to home.