Tag Archives: A&E waiting times

Mark Valladares

18 November 2025 – today’s press releases

By Mark Valladares | Tue 18th November 2025 - 11:57 pm
  • Highest number of 8 hour waits at A&E in 2025
  • Scot Lib Dems call for action on Alzheimer’s and dementia
  • Rennie: Scottish education deserves better than third decade of SNP
  • Government must set out support for workers at Mossmorran
  • McArthur: Prison crisis shows every sign of getting worse
  • Rennie: Housing Secretary has some nerve as heating bill dropped

Highest number of 8 hour waits at A&E in 2025

Responding to new figures showing only 61.5% of people attending A&E were seen within the 4 hour target in the week ending 9th November 2025 (11,020 waited more than 4 hours, the highest in 2025), while 4,532 people waited over 8 hours (the highest in 2025) and 2,181 waited over 12 hours, Alex Cole-Hamilton MSP said:

Under the SNP it feels like every week at A&E is breaking a some kind of record for long waits. We are now seeing the highest number of people waiting over 8 hours of the entire year.

With the cold snap of the last few days we can be under no misapprehension that winter has now arrived, yet the SNP have squandered the months it had to prepare and left our A&E departments in a perilous state.

The Scottish Government needs to start taking serious action to support the staff facing these pressure cooker conditions. Scotland’s A&E patients deserve better – and with the Scottish Liberal Democrats, you can vote for change with fairness at its heart.

Scot Lib Dems call for action on Alzheimer’s and dementia

Scottish Liberal Democrats have today called for the Scottish Government to make sure people with Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias don’t fall through the cracks as new figures confirmed that they now account for around one in 10 of all deaths.

New figures published today by the National Records of Scotland show:

  • There were 6,612 deaths caused by Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias registered in Scotland in 2024. This is one of the leading causes of death in Scotland, accounting for around one in 10 of all deaths.
  • After adjusting for age, there were 122 deaths caused by Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias per 100,000 people in Scotland in 2024. This rate has almost doubled over the last two decades.
  • Almost two-thirds (64%) of deaths caused by Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias were females and 36% were males.

Delegates at the Scottish Liberal Democrat autumn conference recently backed a motion calling for the Scottish Government to urgently establish minimum national care standards and entitlements for Scots with dementia.

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Mark Valladares

9 October 2025 – today’s Federal press releases

By Mark Valladares | Thu 9th October 2025 - 11:25 pm
  • Davey: Gaza ceasefire deal must be first step
  • Tim Farron: Govt must protect customers and replace Ofwat
  • Lib Dems: Religious hate crime on the rise “demands response”
  • 12 hour waits in A&E surge by 25% to worst September on record as Lib Dems call on Govt to protect NHS against winter “cliff edge”

Davey: Gaza ceasefire deal must be first step

Responding to news of a ceasefire deal in Gaza, Liberal Democrat Leader Ed Davey said on X:

News of a ceasefire deal in Gaza brings real hope.

The UK and our allies must do all we can to get the hostages home, get aid in to starving people, and finally end this horrific violence.

This must be the first step towards a two-state solution and a lasting peace.

Tim Farron: Govt must protect customers and replace Ofwat

Responding to the news that the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has allowed five water companies to increase bills by a higher amount than Ofwat had originally allowed, Tim Farron, Liberal Democrat Environment Spokesperson, said:

This is not a functioning market; it is a rigged racket. Customers are seeing their water bills rocket, whilst leaky infrastructure further deteriorates and gallons of disgusting sewage is pumped into British rivers and seas.

These increases are disgraceful and insulting to customers. They shouldn’t have to foot the bill for the failures of private water companies to clean up the mess they themselves created. And we shouldn’t have a regulator that can simply be ignored.

Enough is enough. The Liberal Democrats are urging the Government to get on with replacing Ofwat with a new, powerful regulator and implement a single social tariff to better protect the most vulnerable customers.

Lib Dems: Religious hate crime on the rise “demands response”

Responding to the latest hate crime statistics, which show a 3% increase in religious hate crime over the year, Liberal Democrat Spokesperson for Women and Equalities Marie Goldman said:

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Mark Valladares

19 March 2024 – today’s press releases (part 1)

By Mark Valladares | Tue 19th March 2024 - 9:45 pm
  • London Lib Dem Launch – Blackie slams Khan record on crime
  • Cole-Hamilton: Patients deserve better than the SNP’s new normal
  • “Our Welsh workers are not collateral damage”-Welsh Lib Dems call for clarification on jobs following Tata Steel oven closure
  • Cole-Hamilton attacks SNP ministers as opioids continue to blight Scotland

London Lib Dem Launch – Blackie slams Khan record on crime

Mayoral Candidate, Rob Blackie, has launched the London Liberal Democrat today with a pledge to ‘fix the Met’.

The party launched its campaign at Pop Brixton, located in the neighbourhood Rob has spent much of the past 20 years raising his family.

Blackie told the media and a group of close supporters that Sadiq Khan does “not deserve” a third term due to his record on crime. He also dismissed the Conservative chances, accusing the party of giving up on London after selecting a Trump-backing candidate.

Blackie said Sadiq Khan’s failure on crime is the reason he is standing as mayor.

Seasoned campaigner, Blackie, 50, described how he became a victim of crime himself. His neck was broken in a vicious gang mugging in Vauxhall, and he now has a titanium neck.

Speaking to journalists in Brixton this morning (Tuesday), Blackie said:

My top priority is crime and policing.

Sadiq Khan’s failure on those issues is the main reason I am standing against him.

Violent crime has risen by 30 percent in London since Mr Khan has been in office.

Sexual offence clear-up rates have halved in the last eight years.

Let me just read one shocking sentence from Baroness Casey’s report on the Met Police, published last year – the account of a serving police officer, who said: ‘If you look at our performance around rape, serious sexual offences, the detection rate is so low you may as well say it’s legal in London.’

Just let that sink in… ‘You may as well say it’s legal in London.’

It is just shameful.

Sadiq Khan blames everyone else for this but himself. The buck stops with him and we will call him out in this campaign.

In his speech, Blackie described how he grew up in London playing on the street with neighbouring children from all over the world. He added:

I love living and working in the most cosmopolitan city on the planet.

That is the London I love, and the London we want to ‘get back’.

He also took a swipe at the London Conservatives, describing Susan Hall as “beyond the pale”. He said:

Far from embracing London, she attacks it. Liking tweets that call our city Londonistan and venerate Enoch Powell.

Does she even like London? She certainly doesn’t love our great city. When the Conservatives chose her as their candidate, they gave up on this election.

Cole-Hamilton: Patients deserve better than the SNP’s new normal

Responding to new figures showing only 65.2% of people attending A&E were seen within the 4 hour target in the week ending 10th March, while 2,943 people waited over 8 hours, Scottish Liberal Democrat leader and health spokesperson Alex Cole-Hamilton said:

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Mark Valladares

5 March 2024 – today’s press releases (part 1)

By Mark Valladares | Tue 5th March 2024 - 6:30 pm

We’ve now managed to gain access to press releases from our Scottish colleagues, and so, welcome to our newly enhanced press release coverage…

  • Lords Rwanda Bill votes: “Morally bankrupt government” defeated five times
  • Ed Davey visits Chancellor’s seat ahead of Budget as GP funding in Surrey slashed by £10 million
  • January the worst month on record for waits over 12 hours at A&E
  • Scot Lib Dems respond as council debt at record levels

Lords Rwanda Bill votes: “Morally bankrupt government” defeated five times

Responding to the series of five heavy defeats for the government on their Rwanda Bill in the House of Lords this evening, which saw several Conservative peers voting against the government’s position, Liberal Democrat Leader in the Lords Dick Newby said:

For months this Conservative government has been pushing this policy that does nothing to solve the asylum backlog. This Bill has cost hundreds of millions of pounds, and doesn’t combat dangerous Channel crossings or create safe, legal routes.

By declaring Rwanda safe when it is clearly anything but, and excluding the courts, the Bill also undermines the rule of law. It is the product of a morally and politically bankrupt Government.

Ed Davey visits Chancellor’s seat ahead of Budget as GP funding in Surrey slashed by £10 million

  • GP funding in Surrey fell by 5.3% in real terms between 2018/19 and 2022/23, equivalent to a £9.2 million cut when accounting for inflation
  • Funding per patient took an even starker hit, falling by 8.6% in real terms resulting in a £14 per patient shortfall
  • Lib Dem Leader Ed Davey will visit a GP surgery in Jeremy Hunt’s seat ahead of the Budget to call on the Chancellor to cancel his planned £1.3 billion real terms cut to NHS spending
  • A recent poll of the Chancellor’s seat showed it was at risk of falling to the Lib Dems with voters in the seat naming the NHS as their top priority as 59% of them had close friends and family who had struggled to get a GP appointment

Liberal Democrat Leader Ed Davey will today (Tuesday 5th March) visit a GP surgery in the Chancellor’s Godalming and Ash constituency ahead of the Budget to demand that Hunt cancel his planned real terms NHS spending cuts.

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NewsHound

Record 420,000 patients faced 12-hour A&E waits in 2023

By NewsHound | Mon 15th January 2024 - 8:45 am

  • 1,150 patients a day faced ‘trolley waits’ in A&E of 12 hours or more last year
  • Fifty fold increase in 12-hour delays compared to four years ago
  • In some areas almost one in two patients faced delays of 12 hours or more
  • Lib Dems warn funding cuts risk “pouring petrol over the fire” of NHS crisis

A record 420,000 patients waited more than 12 hours to be admitted to hospital from A&E in 2023, up 20% on the previous year, new analysis by the Liberal Democrats has revealed. It means an average of 1,150 patients a day faced waits of 12 hours more to be admitted to hospital last year.

The Liberal Democrats said the “appalling delays” were being caused by years of Conservative neglect, and warned Rishi Sunak’s plans to slash healthcare funding would “pour petrol” over the flames of the NHS crisis.

The latest data from NHS England shows how long people are left waiting after a decision to admit them to hospital – also known as “trolley waits.” The figures show there has been a staggering fifty fold rise in 12-hour delays at A&E in recent years.

In 2019, just 8,272 people waited 12 hours or more to be admitted to hospital at A&E, making up around 0.13% of all emergency admissions that year. This increased to 419,560 in 2023, with over one in fifteen (6.7%) patients at A&E waiting 12 hours or more to be admitted. It means the proportion of patients waiting 12 hours or more to be admitted is almost fifty times higher in 2023 than it was before the last general election. The number of 12 hour A&E admission delays last year was by the far the highest since records started being recorded in 2011.

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Mary Reid

The hell that is A&E

By Mary Reid | Thu 22nd June 2023 - 11:21 am

At the weekend I spent far too long in an A&E department. Now my story is nothing special and it could be repeated by thousands of people around the country. The worrying thing is precisely that – my experience is now normal, rather than exceptional.

It was my husband Ian who needed medical care, complicated by the fact that he is 79, has some disability and uses a wheelchair outside our home. We didn’t think we needed to go to A&E but phoned 111 on Sunday afternoon for some advice. They sent us to the out-of-hours GP unit at a renowned teaching hospital some 40 minutes drive away. The GP there thought he needed to be seen by hospital staff, and possibly admitted, so sent him down the corridor to A&E.

We probably arrived at a bad time. Not only was it the weekend but junior doctors had been on strike earlier in the week so no doubt some people had held off until the Sunday evening. First we joined the queue to see the triage nurse, alongside a police officer with a prisoner. The small waiting room was already packed with around 50 people, at least half of whom were in some kind of distress, the others anxiously concerned about them.  These were in addition to the patients arriving by ambulance through a separate entrance. It was surprisingly quiet – each person silent in their own island of pain and worry.

We were sent straightaway to the Urgent Treatment Centre, which implied (correctly) that our need was actually less urgent than others. This waiting room was less packed and indeed some people were sitting outside the door in the cool of the garden area. The notice board announced a wait for adults of a rather precise 174 minutes. A vending machine dispensed chocolate bars and drinks, but all the catering facilities in the hospital were closed. We were grateful that we had eaten a meal before we left home.

The woman sitting next to me was clearly in a lot of pain, apparently from a broken arm. She was whimpering and praying with every breath. There was nothing I could do to help her, apart from offer to get her a cup of water. Over 3 hours later she was called in and I felt her relief. Eventually just Ian and one other patient were waiting to be seen. It was well after midnight when a nurse said the unit was closing and took us back to the main A&E waiting room. I was worried that we would have to start the wait period all over again, but was reassured that it wouldn’t be long.

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