Mental health patients are waiting for days in the A&E Skandal in …

The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) has called for “urgent and persistent” investments in community services to ensure that patients receive timely care.

An investigation of the freedom of freedom of information (FOI) of the RCN showed that A&E E-Warte times of 12 hours or more had increased for patients with mental health in England between 2019 and 2025.

The answers from 75 NHS trust showed that around 1.3 million people had visited in a psychological health crisis during this time.

The answers from 38 Trusts showed that the number of patients who were waiting for a bed in a psychiatric unit for more than 12 hours, after the decision to admit, had risen from 1,090 to 5,260.

A high -ranking nurse in the southwest of England said: “Many people will simply wait and be patient.

“But as you can imagine, some of them are in a difficult crisis. They want to go. They want to hurt themselves. They are massively desperate and fight.

She added that if they reached a crisis, patients could redirect an entire team of senior nurses, security personnel and emergency services to protect them.

A high -ranking nurse in a hospital in London also informed the RCN that a patient who had been waiting for a bed for three days became aggressive, smashed a window and threatened the staff.

Professor Nicola Ranger, General Secretary and Managing Director of the RCN, said: “Patients with serious sick mental health who are waiting for the days for treatment in stressful and brightly illuminated A & ES is a scandal in sight.

“These conditions are not 'the norm' and the nursing staff will not accept them.

“If the parity of the appreciation between intellectual and physical health means something, they have to end up extremely humiliating.”

The separate analysis of the RCN, which was published at its annual Congress in Liverpool, found that the beds in mental health units had decreased by 17% over the past 10 years, a total of 3,699 fewer beds.

The union also said that the number of nurses per 10,000 patients in England has almost been halved in the past ten years.

Prof. Ranger said: “No less than urgent and persistent investments in mental nursing in the community can ensure that everyone will receive timely supply in the right place.

“This is how you turn people's lives and relieve the pressure on the emergency rooms.”

Alexa Knight, director of England at the mental health foundation, said: “The frequency of people who participate in A&E who experience a crisis for mental health clearly shows that there is not enough people to support mental health at the beginning of their trip.

“By introducing preventive and based early interventions that show that evidence is cheaper and more effective than the treatment of people at crisis points, the British government could reduce the pressure on the NHS, release the time of nurses and doctors and help everyone have better mental health.

“Charity organizations, organizations of the volunteer sector and nurses for mental health in the community are best set up to support the submission of these interventions – but they urgently need funding for it.”

A spokesman for the Ministry of Health and Social Affairs said: “People with mental health problems do not receive the support or care they earn, and we know that many NHS employees feel burned out and demoralized because they have been revised for years.

“This is why this government is investing an additional 680 million GBP in mental health services this year, recruiting 8,500 other mental workers and setting mental health in every school.

“We also started one of the first 24 -member auxiliary services of mental health from 24/7 via NHS 111 and announced an investment of £ 26 in new crisis centers to ensure that patients can receive timely support from a trained specialist in mental health.”

It happens when the patient security guard said that hospitals for mental health do not always react to recommendations to improve patients.

The security examinations for health services (HSSIB) said that this leads to “missed opportunities to learn, improve and prevent patients and NHS employees”.