FIGURES from October highlight a growing crisis in the NHS as a record number of people spent more than half a day in Essex A&Es waiting for a ward bed to free up last month.

Across Essex, 68,518 people visited A&Es in the area in October – the highest monthly total since monthly records began in June 2015.

Across the Mid and South Essex NHS Trust which runs Basildon Hospital among others the proportion who waited less than four hours from arrival to admission, discharge, or transfer stood at 77.4 per cent.

Across the region were also long waits for a ward bed for those who were admitted with 227 people having to spend more than 12 hours before getting a bed – the highest number on record.

The East of England Ambulance Service answered 101,377 calls to 999 in October – a record high number – with teams responding to 8,487 life threatening call-outs last month.

Matthew Taylor, chief executive of the NHS Confederation, said: "The NHS is now facing unsustainable pressures and running so hot it has reached a tipping point.

"These numbers highlight the extraordinary and unprecedented demand the health service is now facing with a waiting list that now tops 5.8 million.

"As our survey shows, healthcare leaders are sounding alarm bells and warning that patient safety is also at serious risk due to staff shortages.

"Unless we take action now this pressure is going to get even worse in the deepest midwinter months and we would urge the government to do everything it can to prevent the NHS from plunging further into crisis.

"As our sister service, social care also urgently needs extra funding and support now to ensure that medically fit patients can safely be discharged into the community freeing up capacity in the NHS.

"We also need clarity from the centre on how an expanded NHS workforce will be funded in the longer-term in the hope that we are never again faced with a staffing crisis of this magnitude."