The crisis in NHS emergency care was laid bare on Friday as new figures showed that one in eight Londoners faced a wait of more than 12 hours in A&E last month.
Data published by NHS England revealed that 12.6 per cent of people attending A&Es in the capital waited longer than 12 hours to be seen from their time of arrival.
Health leaders said the situation in emergency care was “shameful” and that urgent investment would be needed to ensure patient safety.
The figures reflect the extreme pressure on the health service as it grappled with industrial action by junior doctors and a surge in winter viruses over the festive period. A three-day strike over pay by members of the British Medical Association from December 20-23 led to the cancellation of thousands of procedures and appointments as consultants stepped in to cover emergency care.
Waits of more than five hours to be admitted to A&E can significantly increase the risks of a patient dying or becoming seriously unwell, according to research published by the Emergency Medicine Journal.
The NHS data also reveals a stark inequality in performance across different NHS trusts in the capital.
More than one in five (22.5 per cent) patients attending A&E faced a 12-hour wait at Hillingdon Hospitals NHS Trust, the fourth highest figure of any trust in England.
But at Chelsea and Westminster NHS Trust, just 4.2 per cent of patients waited longer than 12 hours – despite having nearly twice the number of attendances.
Dr Adrian Boyle, President of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, said that 12-hour waits which had “once been non-existent and categorically unacceptable” in the NHS had become “normalised”.
“It is a shameful, distressing and deeply saddening situation. The system is failing patients – and in the under-bedded, understaffed, underfunded and under-resourced system – it is existing staff who are stretching, breaking and burning themselves out to ensure patients receive the quality care they deserve,” he said.
Dr Boyle said that hospitals remained at “unsafe” levels of bed occupancy, a situation which presents “a significant risk to patient safety”.
Separate figures show that patients in London with a stroke or chest pain waited an average of 52 minutes and 6 seconds for an ambulance in December, a rise of 12 minutes on the previous month. However, the most serious “life or limb” calls were responded to in eight minutes, the fastest time of any regional ambulance service.
Daniel Elkeles, chief executive of the London Ambulance Service, said that crews had been “incredibly busy” throughout December, with call handlers taking as many as 7,000 calls on certain days – around 27 per cent more than on a typical busy day. The service’s 111 advisers handled more than 11,000 calls a day.
He told the Standard: “While demand did increase, we are pleased to report that we continued to get our sickest patients quickly, and have seen a significant improvement in response times when compared to the same period last year.”
More than 1.18 million Londoners were waiting for NHS treatment at the end of October, a slight rise on the previous month.
The figures do not reflect the impact of the latest six-day junior doctors strike, which lasted from January 3 until January 9.
Figures released by NHS London on Friday showed that 36,855 elective and outpatient appointments were postponed in London during the strike.
It means that a total of 373,855 inpatient and outpatient appointments have been cancelled in the capital over twelve months of industrial action.
London’s chief nurse Jane Clegg has warned that the impact of the latest strike will last “for weeks”.
The flu season also appears to have peaked in the capital, with an average of 325 patients in hospital with flu in the week up to January 7, up by 40 on the previous week.
Flu hospitalisations peaked in London on January 3, with 366 beds occupied by flu patients – below the peak of 397 reached last winter.
Liberal Democrat MP for Richmond Park, Sarah Olney, said: “Rishi Sunak promised to cut waiting lists when he made his pledge, instead he cut spending on the NHS. Now one year on, thousands of Londoners are still left waiting in pain for the treatment they need.
“It’s unthinkable that Conservative ministers are now planning to slash funding for the NHS further even after all the damage they have caused. We need a general election now to kick this out-of-touch government out of office, fix the NHS and care and get the change the country deserves.”
