Outrage over 17-hour waits in A&E crisis
PATIENTS in ambulances were left queueing outside a hospital this week due to a rise in demand for beds.
Staff have blown the whistle on the crisis and hand-over delays.
A total of 25 ambulances waited outside Hull Royal Infirmary’s A&E from 5pm to 7pm to hand over their sick.
Yesterday NHS Hull CCG tweeted: “The Emergency Department is still extremely busy today.
“Please don’t go there unless it is a real emergency.” A hospital worker said:
HOSPITAL bosses have apologised after patients were forced to wait for up to 17 hours at a packed A&E department.
Corridors were lined with people waiting to be seen as staff battled to meet the high demand.
Beth Loh’s father Stuart Ackerley initially spent almost 11 hours in a corridor at Stepping Hill Hospital in Stockport.
Stuart, 49, went in with a hernia problem at 9.45pm on Monday night.
Beth, 25, said her father was moved to the corridor at around 4.30am the next day.They had to wait there until they were eventually seen by medics and sent home at around 3pm.
Shocked
Beth, who travelled from London to be with her father, was shocked by the number of patients forced to wait.
She said paramedics were assessing patients and taking blood samples to help out busy hospital staff.
Beth said: “I’m not blaming the staff at all, and it didn’t seem like there was a shortage of staff. They were already stepping over each other’s feet. It was just the sheer volume of people there.
“We thought we were
“There are two hour waits on hospital beds. It’s down to cuts to beds, wards and hospitals.” A spokesman said the service was “experiencing higher levels of demand than we would normally expect at this time of year”.
A&E waiting times have hit their worst levels on record. New NHS England data shows just 83.6 per cent of patients were admitted or treated within four hours – well below the target of 95 per cent. going to need a bed for my dad.When I asked how long we would have to wait, they couldn’t say.
“We didn’t have bad care. It seemed as though the staff didn’t have any spare time to give people that personal care, like getting a drink. It was just too busy for them to do anything like that.”
Stepping Hill Hospital said staff do their best to make patients as comfortable as possible in A&E.
Louise Robson, chief executive of Stockport NHS Foundation Trust, said: “I’d like to apologise to people who have experienced long waits in our A&E department and any family, friends and carers who attended with them. This experience is not what we want for our patients.
“Trusts across Greater Manchester are experiencing similar high pressures and I want to thank our ambulance clinicians for the continued support they provide.
“We always prioritise our most urgent cases, and when patients who need to be admitted to hospital are described as ‘waiting’ in the A&E department they are still receiving the safe care and necessary treatment that they need.”