Welsh Lib Dems Respond to RCEM Report - Nearly 1,000 deaths linked to long Emergency Department waits in Wales in 2025

Welsh Lib Dems Respond to RCEM Report -  Nearly 1,000 deaths linked to long Emergency Department waits in Wales in 2025

Commenting, Welsh Liberal Democrat Leader Jane Dodds MS said:

"These figures are a national scandal. Nearly a thousand people dying after waiting over 12 hours in A&E reflects a system that is fundamentally broken and causing avoidable deaths. 

"For too long, the focus has been on the front door of hospitals, when the real crisis is at the back door. Patients cannot be discharged because social care is overstretched, beds remain blocked, and A&E departments become dangerously overcrowded.

"The Welsh Liberal Democrats have been the only political party focusing on fixing social care. We secured an extra £30 million for social care last year, and in Powys, that investment has already helped cut delayed discharges by a third. But this is only a drop in the ocean; we need to go much further and faster. 

"If we are serious about ending these avoidable deaths, the next Welsh Government must properly fund social care and take a whole-system approach to fixing patient flow and funding social care properly will be a red line in any negotiations we hold with other parties."

ENDS