Patients who spend longer in A&E departments waiting for non-immediate care could have a higher risk of dying within the first few weeks of being discharged, research suggests. The risk of dying within 30 days of leaving A&E in England is likely to be more than twice as high for someone whose visit lasted 12 hours than someone who was there for just two hours.
The odds may be even higher for certain groups of the population, including young adults or people who went to A&E for reasons to do with their eyes. The findings have been published by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) and are based on data for A&E attendances in England from March 2021 to April 2022, when the Covid-19 pandemic was still under way.
Hospitals implemented a range of measures during the pandemic to control the spread of infection and these may have affected the way A&E departments operated. Such measures are unlikely to be in place to the same extent today, meaning the results of the research do not necessarily reflect the current risk of dying after visiting A&E, the ONS said.
The findings cover only patients who required non-immediate care in an emergency department. They suggest that, when compared with people who spent two hours in A&E, the odds of a post-discharge death within 30 days were 1.1 times higher for those who were there for three hours, 1.6 times higher for those whose visit lasted six hours and 2.1 times higher for those who were there for 12 hours.
