Over 2 in 5 of Most Elderly Patients Wait Over 12 Hours in A&E

Elderly and frail patients aged 81 and over are worst affected by the ongoing crisis in A&E, which often leaves those admitted to hospital waiting for a bed to become available in inappropriate places like corridors and cupboards. In 2025, 43% of over-80s faced an agonising wait of more than 12 hours between arrival in A&E and admission to a hospital ward, compared with 19% of those aged 21-30.

That’s according to new analysis by the Nuffield Trust, carried out as part of the QualityWatch programme with funding from the Health Foundation. It takes a detailed look at how very long waits for hospital beds became the norm, who is most affected, and whether new NHS definitions and data on ‘corridor care’ in A&E will make a difference.

Long waits for a hospital bed were a problem even before start of the pandemic in 2020, but escalated rapidly during 2021 and 2022. Since then, waits to be admitted have peaked each winter. In February 2026, over 72,000 patients waited over 12 hours, representing a third of all admissions. What was considered unacceptable and alarming in December 2019 (41,104 cases waiting over 12 hours) is now much lower than the best performing months over the past five years.  

The analysis shows that the older you are, the more likely you are to have a very long wait in A&E. Experts previously assumed that older adults spend longer in A&E because they are more likely to be admitted, but this new analysis makes clear that even when you look at patients of all ages who are admitted, older adults are still likely to wait longer than the rest.  

The analysis also found that some health problems are much more likely to lead to long waits than others. The problems most associated with waits over 12 hours in 2025 were airway/breathing (191,193, equivalent to 36% of cases), gastrointestinal (161,905 or 27%), and neurological (159,897 or 36%).

NHS England has committed to tackling one part of the A&E waiting problem – treating patients in temporary areas – and has now defined for the first time what corridor care is . The intention is that clarifying what ‘counts’ as corridor care, and then counting how much this is happening, gives greater clarity and transparency on the scale of the problem. New data shows that there were 72,955 cases of patients enduring corridor care in June, which is equivalent to roughly 5% of A&E attendances, and the number of cases was consistently highest at weekends.

While the Nuffield Trust researchers welcome the increased transparency around this problem, they doubt that this will have a significant impact on waiting times and the severe harm that long waits can lead to. There is also a risk that over-emphasising ‘eliminating corridor care’ as a key target could encourage hospitals to act in a way that’s not best for patients – for example, delaying patients being handed over from ambulances to slow down the flow of patients into A&E corridors.

The authors warn that policies aimed at fixing long waits have focused too much on what goes on in A&E, but in reality, the issues driving long waits can also be found elsewhere at different stages of a patient’s journey through hospital. This includes the often low number of hospital beds on wards, and not enough care being available outside of hospitals. Some of the difficulties with discharging patients are inextricably linked to poor access to social care services, so improvements in A&E depend heavily on the new Prime Minister’s promise to reform the care system. More consistent investment in preventative social care could avoid some hospital admissions in the first place.

Nuffield Trust Deputy Director of Research, Sarah Scobie, said: “It’s absolutely shocking that two-fifths of the most elderly patients going into A&E are stuck waiting for over 12 hours, often in unsafe conditions, when they are already extremely unwell and vulnerable. Since the pandemic, stories like this have become so common, and we know that long A&E waits have caused thousands of avoidable deaths in recent years.

“Behind every case of corridor care counted in the new data is a person going through a frightening and traumatic experience. The fact that we even need a proper definition and data for corridor care in the NHS shows just how far A&E performance has spiralled out of control, with very long waits now the norm.

“But overly focusing on corridor care risks long waits being seen as just a problem for A&E departments. The evidence is clear that we need improvements in how patients flow through hospitals after A&E. Better access to health and social care services outside hospital – both before and after an admission is needed – is also needed to bring about a sustained reduction in long A&E waiting times.”