Ed Davey launches plan to end 12-hour A&E waits as 2025 sees worst ever corridor crisis

12 Jan 2026

EMBARGO: 22.30 Monday 12th January 2026

NHS data shows 2025 is worst ever year for 12-hour “trolley waits” in A&E as thousands of patients treated in hospital corridors
Liberal Democrats propose legal guarantee that no one will wait more than 12 hours in A&E, backed by £1.5bn plan for extra beds and social care
Ed Davey warns that Labour is failing to offer hope, and that tackling the A&E crisis in 2026 is key to beating extremists and populists

In a speech today (Tuesday 13th January), Liberal Democrat Leader Ed Davey will set out a £1.5bn plan to end 12-hour A&E waits within a year and tackle the scandal of patients being treated in hospital corridors.

He will also call for a new law to enshrine the right for patients to be seen in A&E within 12 hours, warning that “18 months of Labour failure” has worsened the NHS crisis left by the Conservatives. Davey will say that the continued crisis in A&E fuels disillusionment and support for populists, and that ending the scandal is essential for restoring “hope” and belief that government can improve people’s lives.

Liberal Democrat analysis of the latest NHS data shows 2025 is projected to see the worst level of 12 hour trolley-waits in A&E ever recorded. A trolley wait occurs when a decision is made to admit a patient in A&E but they then have to wait more than 12 hours for a bed, often in a hospital corridor, because of a lack of capacity. This can lead to shocking scenes of elderly patients left for hours in their own filth, without food or water, and even of patients dying on corridors undiscovered for hours.

Such care has become so normalised that some trusts advertise for dedicated corridor care nurses, and provide information leaflets to patients on the care they can expect in a corridor. In recent months a North London hospital advertised for a corridor nurse to care for patients without a room. Other hospitals are installing plug sockets and call bells into corridors, with staff admitting they didn’t want to make the change, but felt they had no choice.

The average number of 12-hour trolley waits per month surged to 45,749 in 2025, up from 43,186 in 2024, Labour’s first year in office. In November 2025 alone, there were 50,648 waits of over 12 hours after a decision to admit. This is a staggering 1,700 times higher than November 2015, which saw just 29 such waits, highlighting the catastrophic rise in corridor care over the past decade. Meanwhile, a shocking 1.59 million people waited over 12 hours from arrival in A&E waiting rooms last year.

The Liberal Democrat proposals would enshrine a legal right for patients to be admitted to A&E within 12 hours, creating a statutory duty for ministers to deliver it. The £1.5 billion of extra funding would make around 6,000 more beds available each day by expanding hospital capacity and creating “safety net” social care beds for patients waiting on long-term care decisions. It would also boost step-down care so thousands more people can leave hospital each week, while increasing support for carers and hospices to ease pressure across the system.

The proposal would be funded by cancelling the planned medicine price hike agreed with the Trump administration before Christmas, which is set to cost the NHS over £3bn a year despite minimal benefits for patients. RFK Jr, Trump’s Health Secretary, said the medicine deal “puts Americans first” and was “demanded” by President Trump.

The corridor care crisis has pushed hospitals to breaking point, with over 16,000 excess deaths linked to long A&E waits in 2024. Right now, there are 13,000 patients stuck in hospital beds well enough to be discharged but without the care in place for them to leave. Even in the summer months, one in five patients were being treated on trolleys or chairs in A&E corridors, highlighting the ongoing “perma-crisis” in the NHS.

In his speech, Liberal Democrat Leader Ed Davey is expected to say:

“Right now, in the corridors of A&E departments across our country, there are thousands of people – sick or injured – lying on trolleys or waiting on plastic chairs. No privacy. No dignity. There have even been tragic cases of people dying on those trolleys and left undiscovered for hours.

“What more stark an example could there be, of the way things in our country aren’t working the way they should, than thousands of people lying for hours in corridors in our hospitals, and people dying on those trolleys? This deadly corridor crisis isn’t befitting of the heroic doctors, nurses and other health professionals who work in our NHS. It’s not what we expect from our NHS, and it’s not what we pay our hard-earned money in taxes to fund our NHS for.

“No wonder people were so furious with the Conservative Party for plunging the NHS into this crisis, and are now so fed up with Labour for letting things get worse on their watch. No wonder people look at how badly both those parties have let them down, and think politics just doesn’t work for them. People want change – real change.

“So, today, I am announcing a new plan to invest in our hospitals, in social care and in supporting family carers – to help get people out of hospital more quickly, and help keep them out of hospital safely – through a combination of reserving places in care homes, funding more care packages for people after they leave hospital, and supporting family carers properly to look after their loved ones at home.

“With the package we are calling for today, the government could put an end to 12-hour A&E waits altogether, by the end of the year. Never again should anyone have to watch their loved one die on a trolley in a hospital corridor.”

ENDS

Notes to editors:

The change in levels of trolley waits - where someone waits more than 12 hours from the decision to admit to admission - is illustrated below

Download here

Trolley wait data here

Data on number of 12 hour waits from arrival to admission can be found here

Number of 12 hour A&E waits can be found here.

The number of deaths this resulted in can be found here. Analysis by the Royal College of Emergency Medicine found that in 2024 there were 16, 644 associated excess deaths related to stays of 12 hours or longer before hospital admittance. This was an increase of almost 20% (2725) on the 13 ,919 such deaths in 2023.

Hospital discharge figures are here.

In August 2025, a snap survey by the Royal College of Emergency Medicine of ED Clinical Leads found that 19% of patients were on trolleys or chairs in A&E corridors.

Reports on job adverts for corridor nurses can be found here and reporting on hospitals putting in plug sockets is here.

The Liberal Democrats’s proposals would make 6,000 extra hospital beds available to end corridor care through £1.5bn of new investment

1,000 more staffed hospital beds.
Extra investment in social care to reserve 1,600 “safety net” social care places each day, for hospitals to discharge into if they need to.
Extra intermediate/step down care packages to free up another 1,200 beds a day.
Free up 2,500 beds through other measures to reduce readmissions and cut the length of hospital stays:
- Expanding the use of the Discharge Medicines Service and High Intensity Use Services, both of which have been proven to reduce readmissions.
- Introducing a Carer Support Service in every hospital, helping to get people home quicker.
- Guaranteeing every hospice can meet local needs, with funding allocated so no patient in need of hospice care is turned away.
Extra investment in patient transport services, discharge hubs, administrative support including additional ward clerks, and surges of locum staff during discharge bottlenecks where required.

The party has also called for a new law to end 12-hour waits in A&E and corridor care, and a legal duty on ministers to deliver on it.

The new guarantee that no patient will wait longer than 12 hours from arriving in A&E to being admitted, transferred or discharged would be enshrined in the NHS Constitution, which already sets out a number of other patients’ rights. That would place a legal duty on the Government and the NHS to put the policies and resources in place to achieve them.

The plan follows the existing Liberal Democrat campaign and manifesto commitment to rescue GP services and ease the pressure on hospitals with a right to a GP appointment within 7 days, or 24 hours if urgent.

The GP package includes an increase in the number of full-time equivalent GPs by 8,000, half by boosting recruitment and half from retaining more experienced GPs. The party would also introduce 24/7 booking for GP appointments via 111, and a dedicated fund to open surgeries in under-served areas.