LONDON A& ES FACE 'WORST' WINTER CRISIS

HUGE RISE IN DELAYS ADMITTING PATIENTS FOR TREATMENT AS SUNAK PLEDGES 'URGENT ACTION’

- Daniel Keane and Nicholas Cecil

HEALTH experts warned today that the crisis in London's A&E units was the "worst" they had seen with record waiting times and ambulances queuing outside.

Analysis of NHS figures by the Evening Standard found that paramedic crews in the capital lost the equivalent of 3.5 months as a result of handover delays in the week up to December 25, a rise of more than 12 per cent compared with a month earlier.

More than 7,150 Londoners waited more than 12 hours to be admitted to A&E in November alone, an increase of 46 per cent in three months. Amid growing warnings over the emergency care crisis, Rishi Sunak today promised measures to ease the pressures on the health service. In a speech in London, the Prime Minister acknowledged: "I know there's a problem in A&E - people are understandably anxious when they see ambulances queuing outside hospitals. You should know we're taking urgent action."

He added that bed capacity was being increased by 7,000, with more hospital beds and people cared for at home, there was new funding to help discharge people into social care and the community, and "urgent" work was being carried out on plans for A&E and ambulances. However, the scale of the crisis was laid bare by warnings from health experts. Siva Anandaciva, chief analyst at The King’s Fund think tank, told the Standard: “Every winter in the NHS is challenging, but I’ve never seen it this bad in my career. I’ve lost count of how many years I’ve been analysing A&E and ambulance wait times and I’ve never seen figures like this in London.”

Shadow health minister, Tooting MP and A&E doctor Rosena Allin-Khan, added: “I have been an emergency doctor for 17 years and this is the worst I have ever seen our NHS, which is a sentiment shared by most of my colleagues.”