550 Deaths a Week: Study Links NHS A&E Overcrowding to Excess Mortality
September 27, 2026 · Frisian News
Photo: Wikimedia Commons
A peer-reviewed study of more than 19,000 NHS patients found that for every 10% rise in A&E occupancy, 28-day mortality rose by 1%. The lead researcher estimates around 550 patients die every week as a result of overcrowding and corridor care.
Around 550 patients die every week in the UK because NHS emergency departments are too full to treat them safely, according to a study presented at the European Emergency Medicine Congress in France.
Dr Ryan McHenry, an emergency medicine doctor in the west of Scotland and researcher at the University of Glasgow, analysed data from more than 19,000 adult patients across 134 A&E departments in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. He found that for every 10% increase in emergency department occupancy, the chance of dying in the following 28 days rose by 1%. Those departments had an average occupancy rate of 175%, meaning they held almost twice as many patients as they were designed to hold.
Dr McHenry's team also examined corridor care, where patients receive treatment in non-standard spaces such as corridors. That too was linked to increased mortality at a similar rate. Official NHS figures show an average of more than 3,000 patients were treated in corridors or other makeshift areas every day in England in July alone.
Dr Den Langhor, from the British Medical Association's consultants committee, called the deaths an "absolute scandal" and said: "That is the equivalent of a fatal jumbo jet crash every single week in the UK." Dr Ian Higginson, president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, said people "are dying in association with overcrowding in emergency departments" and described the situation as an "utterly normalised and unacceptable state of affairs." He added that policymakers are "not seeing any urgency."
A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said the NHS "faced the busiest summer in its history" and pointed to 75% of A&E patients being seen within four hours in August. The government, the spokesperson said, is "taking urgent action to reduce pressure on emergency departments and end corridor care" and is investing more than £1.5 billion in hospital buildings and facilities.
McHenry's study covered a two-week period in March 2025 and reflects roughly 70% of emergency departments across England, Wales and Northern Ireland. His estimate ranges from 33 to 1,083 excess deaths per week, a wide range the researcher attributed to the relatively small size of the study. Dr Felix Lorang, a member of the congress's abstract selection committee, said the research "makes it unmistakably clear to all of us that overcrowding and corridor care mean many emergency patients will not survive."
The Royal College of Nursing has previously warned that a shortage of A&E beds leaves patients on trolleys in corridors without proper access to oxygen and emergency equipment, and that stretched staff can miss critical signs of deterioration. In early January 2026, the Queen's Medical Centre in Nottinghamshire was designed for 350 patients per day but treated 550 in a single day, NHS data cited by McHale and Co shows. Trusts in Surrey, Kent, Suffolk and Wales declared critical incidents in the same period.
Published September 27, 2026 · Frisian News