A&E Armageddon »» »»
SUNDAY MIRROR 98% of hospital trusts are missing waiting times target Patients tell of ordeals waiting hours on trolleys
The Hillingdon Hospitals London North West Healthcare Aintree University Hospital University Hospital of Leicester Blackpool Teaching Hospitals Worcestershire Acute Hospitals Royal Liverpool and Broadgreen University Hospitals East Kent Hospitals University University Hospital of North Midlands Sheffield Teaching Hospitals on an A&E trolley there. Writing on the NHS Choices website, the patient said: “Staff are working in terrible conditions, it’s like Armageddon. It is not acceptable to have over 16 patients lying on trolleys blocking busy corridors.”
Figures released this week showed 550 people spent over 12 hours on trolleys waiting for a bed in December.
Our probe shows waits of this length were recorded at 38 trusts – with the University Hospitals of North Midlands NHS Trust the worst. At its Royal Stoke University Hospital and Stafford County Hospital, 178 patients spent at least 12 hours waiting to be admitted to a ward.
England’s worst-performing unit was at Hillingdon Hospital in north-west London, where just over half of patients were seen in under four hours. One described the A&E as “shambolic”, with over-stretched nurses and not enough doctors. She told how her partner spent over 12 hours in agony before being admitted to a ward. Dr Adrian Boyle, a consultant emergency physician, said: “These statistics are terrible. For patients to be waiting that long on trolleys in corridors is undignified. There is good international evidence that long waits in A& E departments are associated with avoidable mortality. “Hospitals are too full. We have fewer beds per head than almost any other country in Europe.” He fears the situation will get worse because of plans to close or downgrade one in six A&Es. Dr Boyle added: “When one unit gets downgraded or closed, other units nearby fall over.” Richard Murray, director of policy at the King’s Fund think tank, said: “You can’t just shut one A&E and hope for the best. There would need to be a well thought-out plan but there simply isn’t enough money.”
NHS England said December saw a 41 per cent annual increase in delays discharging patients due to pressures in social care, which had affected their ability to quickly admit A&E patients.
A spokesman said: “Frontline services came under unprecedented pressure in December. It is a tribute to the dedication of doctors, nurses and other staff in A&E that they continue to treat the vast majority of patients within four hours.”
Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust said: “We are acutely aware of the anxiety and discomfort caused by having to be on a trolley for a long time and we are working hard to improve how we deal with increased pressure in A&E.”
Jon Ashworth, Labour’s Shadow Health Secretary, said the figures were proof of “Theresa May’s disregard for the NHS”.