Emergency care for dying people grows as people left with ‘nowhere else to turn’

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A report by the charity and King’s College London experts found the scale of emergency care given to people in their last year of life in England “has grown.”

In 2023, they accounted for almost 770,000 ambulance trips to emergency departments, more than one million A&E visits and almost 890,000 emergency admissions, taking up 11.5 million “unplanned hospital bed days.”

Emergency department visits involving this group rose 21 per cent between 2014 and 2023, from 900,295 to 1,089,365. 

They accounted for around one in 14 of emergency attendances, 19 per cent of ambulance transfers, 18 per cent of unplanned admissions and 29 per cent of unplanned bed days.

The report said “too many people die in pain and without the support they need” and that gaps in 24/7 community care prevent people dying in comfort at home. 

It called for a transformation fund for palliative and end-of-life care.

Retired GP Shan Newhouse, whose husband died from pancreatic cancer in 2024 aged 69, said: “The doctors knew Grant had pancreatic cancer, but they still couldn’t find a bed. 

“He was feeling ill and vomiting, so in the end he had to lie across a few of the chairs.

“The general impression I had was of a system that was completely overwhelmed, working desperately to try and cope.”

Royal College of Emergency Medicine president Dr Ian Higginson said: “Too many people with palliative care needs are ending up with us, some in the last days or hours of their life — and not by their own choice.

“These last patients typically need a quiet and comfortable environment, where they can be surrounded by loved ones and have access to specialist clinicians.

“Instead, they may end up in a loud, bright and overcrowded [emergency departments] because of a lack of community care provision.”

Royal College of Nursing general secretary Professor Nicola Ranger said: “Such vulnerable and unwell people deserve to be treated close to home but instead are forced to turn to overcrowded and understaffed A&Es where they could spend their final hours in a corridor.”

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said hospices do “incredible work” and that the government recognised financial pressures, building on £125 million already invested. 

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