Responding to the latest NHS England data, RCN Director for England, Patricia Marquis, said:
“Health and care is under huge strain in the run-up to Christmas. These figures suggest there is absolutely no slack in the system, which is dangerously close to overheating completely.
“A key part of the problem is that the vast majority of hospital beds are full - around 95% - including with thousands of patients fit to be discharged. The lack of community and social care means they’ll be spending this Christmas in hospital.
“The real cause of this is record nursing vacancies in the NHS and tens of thousands more across health and social care.
“Ministers can only begin to fix this by addressing the record nursing vacancies and valuing the profession properly by paying nurses fairly to retain and recruit the staff that patients need.”
Ends
Notes to Editors
The latest NHS Urgent and Emergency Care Daily Situation Reports show for the week commencing 12 December 2022, the daily average Adult General and Acute Bed Occupancy remained at 95%.
60.2% of patients no longer meet the criteria to remain in hospital. On average, 13,697 patients were still in hospital every day last week despite no longer meeting the criteria to remain.
