The number of people leaving A&E without treatment in England has tripled in the past six years, new figures reveal.
Analysis of NHS data by the Royal College of Nursing shows that increased demand for urgent hospital care and longer wait times has led to a “shocking” rise in the number of patients leaving emergency departments without treatment.
Between July and September 2025, more than 320,000 people left A&E without treatment – an increase of more than three times compared to the same period in 2019, when fewer than 100,000 people left without treatment.
Most became frustrated after waiting so long. The RCN analysis also found that over the same period, the number of patients waiting more than 12 hours increased by 90 times, from 1,281 in 2019 to 116,141 in 2025.
RCN general secretary and chief executive Professor Nicola Ranger said the lack of urgency in dealing with the crisis was unacceptable. “The skyrocketing numbers of patients leaving emergency departments without treatment is alarming and indicative of a broken system,” he said.
“The reality is that a failure to provide appropriate, well-resourced primary and community care services leaves people with no option but to go to A&E, meanwhile people who are in hospital and ready to be discharged cannot because of the lack of support available closer to home. The net result is that acute services are completely jammed, staff are at breaking point and patients are returning frustrated, and potentially in even worse health.”
A separate report from private health care analysts LaingBuisson found that the pressure on the NHS could get worse as fewer patients can afford to move to the private sector.
While NHS-funded care delivered by independent acute hospitals is set to reach a record £2.2 billion in 2024, Tim Reed, head of research at Langbuisson and author of the report on the private acute healthcare market in the UK, said the number of people paying for treatment privately increased by only 0.1% in 2024.
While the market for affordable private diagnostic services was “relatively strong”, “wider concerns over the economy and the impact of the rising costs of everyday life mean that people are preferring to rely on the NHS for more high-cost surgical options – even if it means delaying treatment.”
“Should self-funders begin to turn from private health care to NHS services, this would place even greater pressure on the NHS.”
But Dr John Puntis, co-chair of Keep Our NHS Public, said NHS contracts with private providers were a false economy. “The private sector is not a pressure valve for the NHS. Private hospitals rely on the same overstretched staff, so shifting more NHS money their way only pulls people out of an already depleted workforce.
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“The answer is not outsourcing; it is investing in NHS staff, services and capacity so that people do not feel they have to go to the private sector in the first place.”
Responding to the findings, a spokesperson for the Department of Health and Social Care said: “No one should be receiving care in a chair or trolley in the corridor – it is unacceptable and undignified. We are determined to end it, which is why we are publishing corridor waiting figures so we can take the necessary steps to eliminate it from our health service. Sunlight is the best disinfectant to stop this practice.
“This winter, we are investing almost £450 million to expand same-day and urgent care services, upgrade up to 500 ambulances, deliver new mental health crisis centers and give NHS leaders more power to deliver local solutions.”
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