Getting Emergency Care Back on Track

Years of Conservative mismanagement pushed our NHS to breaking point and Labour’s promises won’t be enough without urgent reform.

Nowhere is that clearer than in our emergency care services. From patients dying in A&E waiting rooms, to families waiting hours for ambulances, the crisis has become intolerable.

Dangerous practices like ‘corridor care’ – where patients are left waiting on trolleys in hallways without dignity, safety, or proper attention – have been normalised. Ambulance hubs have been under threat, air ambulances rely on charity funding, and too many people are left without urgent care when they need it most.

Ambulance Crisis

Last month a Freedom of Information request by our team uncovered that 2.7 million people made their own way to A&E last year, rather than waiting for an ambulance - a 14% increase since 2019. Over 250,000 of those people required serious, urgent medical assistance.

These figures lay bare the reality of this crisis, where people do not think they can rely on ambulance services even in the most serious of circumstances. This could have deadly consequences if people have lost faith that ambulances will be there when they need them.

Liberal Democrats are determined to turn this around.

Today our members have passed new policy to get emergency care back on track, calling on the Government to:

• End corridor care by the end of this Parliament, including through a new Winter Taskforce that builds resilience in hospitals, ambulance services, and patient discharging – making this year’s winter crisis the last.
   
• Fix the broken social care system, which accounts for 1 in 7 NHS beds being blocked. We would restart cross-party talks, conclude the Casey Review within a year, and put in place urgent reforms. That includes better support for unpaid carers – with guaranteed respite care, an end to the Carer’s Allowance cliff edge, and paid carers leave.
   
• Tackle staff shortages in emergency care with a dedicated A&E workforce plan and a strategy to ensure all departments meet or exceed “good” safety standards as judged by the Care Quality Commission.
   
• Guarantee safer emergency care for patients – including a qualified clinician in every A&E waiting room, a clinical manager on shift in every NHS 111 call centre, and a rapid rollout of mental health crisis centres to end the postcode lottery in mental health care.

Rescue and protect our ambulance services, designating every ambulance hub as critical infrastructure, integrating air ambulances into the NHS with guaranteed funding, and launching a new national drive to recruit rural Community First Responders.
 

When people turn to the NHS in dire need, they deserve emergency care where lives are saved and patients can trust that help will come. 

Instead, under the Conservatives, it became a symbol of neglect and crisis.

Labour has promised new investment, but without urgent reforms to social care and a systematic plan to build resilience, that investment will not be enough.

Our proposals would not only bring dignity back to patients in crisis but also protect the NHS workforce, restore public trust, and save lives.