Tens of thousands waited more than 24 hours for hospital beds in A&E last year
About 49,000 A&E visits last year resulted in patients waiting 24 hours or more for a hospital bed, with people aged 65 or over making up almost 70% of cases.According to a freedom of information request by the Liberal Democrats, some patients went 10 days before getting a space on a ward.The analysis, which used data from 54 trusts in England, showed that of the 48,830 “trolley waits” of 24 hours or longer in 2024, 33,413 were experienced by people aged 65 or over.The term “trolley wait” refers to the time between a patient being transferred to a ward after a decision has been taken to admit them to hospital.The Lib Dems said East Kent’s NHS trust had the highest number of day or longer trolley waits last year at 8,916, up from 30 in 2019 – pre-pandemic – followed by Liverpool University hospitals trust with 4,315, up from 10 in 2019.
However, the party estimated that the real number of 24-hour cases was likely to be far higher because only 54 out of 141 trusts had provided full data,The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) said the figures “only begin to scratch the surface” of a “crisis in corridor care” – after reports of patients being seen in the corridors of hospitals due to a lack of beds,The RCN said the declining recruitment in nursing was adding to the problem,“The NHS and the UK government must begin to disclose the true scale of the problem if they’re serious about eradicating it,” general secretary and chief executive of the RCN Prof Nicola Ranger said,“A single patient waiting for more than 24 hours is unacceptable, tens of thousands waiting shows why corridor care must be eradicated.
It is undignified and unsafe, and now a year-round crisis.The Lib Dems want the government to make a new team of “super-heads”, composed of experienced NHS bosses who would go into struggling trusts and bring them up to standard.“The least patients deserve is the dignity to be treated in an appropriate area,” Lib Dem health and social care spokesperson Helen Morgan said.“Not the ramshackle waiting rooms and corridors that far too many have to suffer through for hours.“That is why the government must ensure that this is the last winter crisis anyone will experience and end corridor care by the end of this parliament.
“The Conservatives’ beyond-shameful neglect brought us to this point, but the Labour government’s approach of sitting on its hands and hoping it all gets better has not survived contact with reality.”The current Labour government has made cutting NHS waiting lists one of its key missions.“We have taken action to protect A&E departments, introducing the new RSV vaccine, delivering more than 27m Covid and flu vaccines and ending the strikes so staff were on the frontline not the picket line for the first winter in three years,” a Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said.“This work continues to ensure patients are treated quickly.We are fundamentally reforming the NHS as part of our Plan for Change, providing more care in the community, so fewer patients have to go to A&E, and those who do are treated faster and with dignity.
”A spokesperson for East Kent hospitals trust said: “We have seen increased attendances across our three main hospitals and we are sorry that patients are waiting longer than we would like in our emergency departments,”University Hospitals of Liverpool group has been contacted for comment,
Parents must make tough choices on smartphones, says children’s commissioner for England
Parents should be prepared to make difficult decisions over their child’s smartphone usage rather than trying to be their friend, the children’s commissioner for England has said.Dame Rachel de Souza said this should include parents considering the example they are setting their children through their own phone usage.Writing in the Sunday Times, de Souza said that “if we are serious about protecting our children, we have to look at our own behaviour”.She added: “The temptation as a parent to give in to a child’s pleas is a real one. Every parent has been in that position
It’s not too late to stop Trump and the Silicon Valley broligarchy from controlling our lives, but we must act now | Carole Cadwalladr
To walk into the lion’s den once might be considered foolhardy. To do so again after being mauled by the lion? It’s what … ill-advised? Reckless? Suicidal? Six years ago I gave a talk at Ted, the world’s leading technology and ideas conference. It led to a gruelling lawsuit and a series of consequences that reverberate through my life to this day.And last week I returned. To give another talk that would incorporate some of my experience: a Ted Talk about being sued for giving a Ted Talk, and how the lessons I’d learned from surviving all that were a model for surviving “broligarchy” – a concept I first wrote about in the Observer in July last year: the alignment of Silicon Valley and autocracy, and a kind of power the world has never seen before
British firms urged to hold video or in-person interviews amid North Korea job scam
British companies are being urged to carry out job interviews for IT workers on video or in person to head off the threat of giving jobs to fake North Korean employees.The warning was made after analysts said that the UK had become a prime target for hoax IT workers deployed by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. They are typically hired to work remotely, enabling them to escape detection and send their wages to Kim Jong-un’s state.Google said in a report this month that a case uncovered last year involved a single North Korean worker deploying at least 12 personae across Europe and the US. The IT worker was seeking jobs within the defence industry and government sectors
‘Don’t ask what AI can do for us, ask what it is doing to us’: are ChatGPT and co harming human intelligence?
Recent research suggests our brain power is in decline. Is offloading our cognitive work to AI driving this trend?Imagine for a moment you are a child in 1941, sitting the common entrance exam for public schools with nothing but a pencil and paper. You read the following: “Write, for no more than a quarter of an hour, about a British author.”Today, most of us wouldn’t need 15 minutes to ponder such a question. We’d get the answer instantly by turning to AI tools such as Google Gemini, ChatGPT or Siri
Italian opposition file complaint over far-right party’s use of ‘racist’ AI images
Centre-left parties slam ‘racist, Islamophobic and xenophobic’ faked images posted on social media by League partyOpposition parties in Italy have complained to the communications watchdog about a series of AI-generated images published on social media by deputy prime minister Matteo Salvini’s far-right party, calling them “racist, Islamophobic and xenophobic”, the Guardian has learned.The centre-left Democratic party (PD), with the Greens and Left Alliance, filed a complaint on Thursday with Agcom, the Italian communications regulatory authority, alleging the fake images used by the League contained “almost all categories of hate speech”.Over the past month, dozens of apparently AI‑generated photos have appeared on the League’s social channels, including on Facebook, Instagram and X. The images frequently depict men of colour, often armed with knives, attacking women or police officers.Antonio Nicita, a PD senator, said: “In the images published by Salvini’s party and generated by AI there are almost all categories of hate speech, from racism and xenophobia to Islamophobia
From Sidemen to MrBeast: how YouTube and its creator economy took over TV
From MrBeast creating the world’s most expensive reality TV show and Jake Paul’s record-breaking clash with Mike Tyson to the British supergroup Sidemen’s Netflix deal, YouTube’s superstar creators are taking over mainstream television.Last month Netflix launched the second series of Inside, the Sidemen’s reality show that was a hit when the first run of episodes premiered on YouTube.The deep-pocketed streamer has such confidence in the format from the septet – whose members include the content creator, rapper and some-time boxer KSI – that it has already commissioned a US version, which is to be broadcast later this year.The TV breakthrough comes just weeks after the Sidemen, who have more than 150 million YouTube subscribers, sold out the 90,000-seat Wembley stadium for a charity football match against a YouTube Allstars team.Attenders and players at the 18-goal extravaganza included Paul, whose Netflix boxing match against Tyson in November made history as the most-streamed sporting event ever
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