Royal College of Emergency Medicine -
The idea of emergency care services experiencing seasonal spikes in demand – so called ‘Winter Pressures’ are fast becoming a thing of the past. Instead, long waits have become the new norm year-round, and staff are caring for patients in unsafe conditions on a daily basis. It is well established that long waits are associated with patient harm and excess deaths. Last year the UK government published Delivery plan for the recovery of urgent and emergency care (UEC) services. A year on, far too many patients are still coming to avoidable harm.