The most seriously ill patients are left waiting for hours in corridors or trolleys as the NHS struggles to find them beds, BBC research has shown.
According to the BBC, almost a quarter of patients admitted on to wards during December and January in England faced delays of more than four hours before finding a bed.
NHS England said extra money was being invested to help hospitals recruit staff and cut waiting times.
The research was based on the analysis of NHS England Data and found that the delays faced by some of the sickest patients rose sharply this winter.
It showed 199,000 patients had four-hour “trolley waits” after being seen in A&E before a bed could be found. That is more than two times higher than the numbers seen four years ago.
The Royal College of Nursing said the situation had got so bad that many hospitals had started deploying nurses to work in corridors, providing treatments to patients.
Full story on The BBC, 26 February 2020