I read the article by Gilligan et al1 with interest but was very surprised initially at their lack of association of “boarding” with increased mortality. I note in the discussion that they compared their findings with those of Richardson2 and stated that they did not find a similar outcome. I would suggest that there are a number of reasons why this study did not find similar findings to Richardson2 or Sprivulis et al,3 who found strong correlations between admission during overcrowded periods and death …