Numbers leaving A&E without treatment triples in six years
The number of people in England walking out of A&E without treatment has tripled in the past six years, new figures show.Analysis of NHS data by the Royal College of Nursing shows that a rise in demand for urgent hospital care and long waits has led to what it describes as a “shocking” rise in the number of patients leaving emergency departments untreated.Between July and September 2025, more than 320,000 people left A&E without being treated – a more than threefold increase from the same period in 2019, when just under 100,000 people walked out untreated.Most left in frustration at waiting so long.The RCN’s analysis also found that over the same period, there was a 90-fold increase in the number of patients waiting in excess of 12 hours, from 1,281 in 2019 to 116,141 in 2025.
RCN’s general secretary and chief executive, Prof Nicola Ranger, said the lack of urgency in tackling the crisis was unacceptable.“Skyrocketing numbers leaving emergency departments without treatment is dangerous and a sign of a broken system,” she said.“The reality is that the failure to deliver proper, well-resourced primary and community care services leaves people with no choice but to go to A&E, meanwhile those in hospital and ready to be discharged cannot leave because of that same lack of support available closer to home.The net result is acute services totally jammed up, staff at breaking point and patients leaving frustrated, only to possibly return in even worse health.”A separate report by private healthcare analysts LaingBuisson found that the pressure on the NHS could be made worse as fewer patients can afford to go private.
While NHS-funded care carried out by independent acute hospitals reached a record £2.2bn in 2024, Tim Read, LaingBuisson’s head of research and the author of the report on the private acute healthcare market in the UK, said that the number of people paying to be treated privately grew just 0.1% in 2024.While the market for cheaper private diagnostic services was “relatively robust”, “wider concerns over the economy and the impact of the rising cost of everyday living means that people are choosing to rely on the NHS – even if it means a delay in treatment – for more high-cost surgical options,” he said.“Should self-funders begin to turn away from private healthcare towards NHS services, it will place even more strain on the NHS.
”But Dr John Puntis, the co-chair of Keep Our NHS Public, said NHS contracts with private providers were a false economy.“The private sector isn’t a pressure valve for the NHS.Private hospitals rely on the same overstretched staff, so shifting more NHS money their way only pulls people out of an already thin workforce.Sign up to Headlines UKGet the day’s headlines and highlights emailed direct to you every morningafter newsletter promotion“The answer isn’t outsourcing; it’s investing in NHS staff, services and capacity so people don’t feel they have to go private in the first place.”Responding to the findings, a Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: “No one should receive care in a corridor in a chair or trolley – it is unacceptable and undignified.
We are determined to end this, which is why we’re publishing corridor waiting figures so we can take the steps needed to eradicate it from our health service.Sunlight is the best disinfectant to stop this practice.“This winter, we are investing almost £450m to expand same-day and urgent care services, upgrading up to 500 ambulances, delivering new mental health crisis centres, and giving NHS leaders more power to deliver local solutions.”
Advertising giant WPP relegated from FTSE 100 after nearly 30 years
WPP has been relegated from the FTSE 100 after nearly 30 years, as the advertising multinational struggles to stem an exodus of clients and match the artificial intelligence and data capabilities of rivals.The market valuation of WPP, once the world’s largest advertising group, has plummeted from about £24bn in 2017 to £3.1bn.The company’s share price has plunged by two-thirds this year and it has been relegated from the blue chip index after a quarterly reshuffle, confirmed when stock markets closed on Wednesday afternoon.British Land, which was the most valuable company in the FTSE 250, was promoted to the FTSE 100 to take the spot vacated by WPP
Post Office avoids fine over leak of wrongfully convicted operators’ names
The Post Office has avoided a fine over a data breach that resulted in the mistaken online publication of the names and addresses of more than 500 post office operators it had been pursuing during the Horizon IT scandal.The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has reprimanded the Post Office over the breach, in which the company’s press office accidentally published an unredacted version of a legal settlement document with the operators on its website.The ICO said the data breach in June last year involving the release of names, home addresses and operator status of 502 out of the 555 people involved in the successful litigation action against the Post Office led by Sir Alan Bates had been “entirely preventable”.“The people affected by this breach had already endured significant hardship and distress as a result of the IT scandal,” said Sally Anne Poole, the head of investigations at the ICO.“They deserved much better than this
Doom, gloom … and Belle Gibson? The top Google searches in Australia in 2025
We may, indeed, be living in the end of times, with natural disasters, death and politics dominating Google searches in Australia in 2025.Cyclone Alfred was the number one overall Google search term by Australians in 2024, according to the annual search results list released by the tech company on Thursday.It was followed by American political activist Charlie Kirk, who also topped Wikipedia’s list of the year’s most-read articles after being fatally shot in September, and in third place was Australian federal election 2025.When we weren’t voting or doomscrolling, we were watching television. Belle Gibson, the Australian wellness scammer and subject of the hit show Apple Cider Vinegar, made it into the overall top 10 list, as did serial killer Ed Gein from the series Monster
Amazon and the tightening grip of capitalism | Letters
Yanis Varoufakis argues that Amazon marks a shift to “technofeudalism”, claiming its ownership of digital infrastructure forces capitalists, governments and users to pay it economic rents (How Amazon turned our capitalist era of free markets into the age of technofeudalism, 27 November). This rests on an idealised view of capitalism. Early capitalism saw similar dynamics: the East India Company, backed by the British state, controlled trade routes, exploited resources and wielded political power, enabling it to charge above-market prices for commodities such as tea and spices.In Capital, Karl Marx noted that English landlords helped establish capitalism by dispossessing peasants and commodifying land. They earned monopoly rents from their exclusive control of this productive resource – a portion of surplus value originally created by exploited labour and first appropriated by industrial capitalists before being transferred to landowners
Maro Itoje eyes World Cup glory after England dodge big guns in 2027 draw
Maro Itoje has set his sights on Rugby World Cup glory in Australia in 2027 after England were handed a potentially favourable path through the tournament when the draw was made in Sydney on Wednesday.England, who have risen to third in the world rankings after an 11-match winning streak, emerged on the other side of the draw from the reigning world champions, South Africa, the three-times winners New Zealand and France.England are in Pool F with Wales, Tonga and Zimbabwe at the expanded 24-team event with Italy, Australia, Ireland and Argentina possible opponents in the last 16 and beyond.“Our ambition is to do very well and win this tournament,” Itoje, the England captain, said. “But to do that we know we have to make sure we get our preparation right and the next two years leading to the World Cup is massive
Cummins conundrum is key as Australia try not to overthink tactics
Will the captain return? Will Nathan Lyon play? Who will open? Ashes hostilities are renewed and the hosts don’t need to ask too many questionsAt last, at long last, an Ashes series is about to start. It feels that way, anyway, after so many months of lead-up, such an eternal blur of preview and prediction and preamble, were supposed to reach their end – only to find that the end was instead a momentary interruption, a hiccup, an indigestion-dream of a Test from Perth, a contest done in the span of 31 hours, leaving everyone to return to punditry and prognostication for a further 11 blasted and benighted days.We are, for pity’s sake, in a discussion cycle about Ben Stokes correctly applying a bike helmet while not on a bike, or Steve Smith correctly applying eye-black stickers in his Tim Tebow tribute act, or the archaeologically uncovered fact that Australian teams have a good record at the Gabba. Like farmers waiting for the rains, we are praying for play to start to let us talk about something that has happened, rather than something that might. Even the day-night format means another wait, four more hours than would usually be the case before the balm of the first ball
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