The deaths of an estimated 500 people each week caused by delays in A&E 'happen every winter', a senior health official has said. Ian Higginson, vice-president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, said the amount of deaths caused by wait times in emergency care is 'not a short-term thing' and is instead 'a longstanding problem'.
Mr Higginson hit out at any attempt to 'discredit' previous warnings from his organisation over serious problems in hospitals by blaming the pandemic, and said the current issues facing the NHS are not down to Covid-19 or flu.
He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: "What we’ve been hearing over the last few days is that the current problems are all due to Covid or they’re all due to flu, or that this is complex, you mustn’t jump to conclusions – all that sort of stuff."
READ MORE: Croydon hospital apologises after woman 'forced to wait 24 hours in A&E'
