Hospital: ex-nurse’s 9-hour wait

Bank nurses not used as ambulance staff and patients kept waiting at cash-strapped hospital

A former hospital theatre nurse who spent nine hours on a trolley to see a doctor at an accident and emergency department has spoken of the ordeal.

A former theatre nurse spent nine hours waiting on a trolley as to see a doctor at an accident and emergency department. Angela Fargie was rushed to Scarborough casualty from Bridlington out-of-hours with a suspected pulmonary embolism on New Year’s Day.

She originally called 111 but was told that it was an eighthour wait for an ambulance.

Struggling to breathe, she drove herself to the out-ofhours department where an ambulance was called.

“I didn’t even get in a treatment room until 24 hours and 10 minutes after I arrived at A&E,” said the 61-year-old.

“We were two abreast in the corridor. The ambulance crews couldn’t hand over their patients.

“The crew that were with me were grounded for four hours and 10 minutes.”

The Bridlington resident is going to pen a letter to the chief executive and the health secretary stressing her concerns.

“When it gets to times like this, ambulance crews are stuck unable to pass on their patients. It was a possible eight-hour wait for me because of that problem,” said Ms Fargie.

“Can they not have bank staff nurses look after patients in a safe area so ambulance crews can hand over patients when the A&E department is too busy?”

The trust says the hospital is coping well in the circumstances. A spokesperson for the trust said: “Patient safety remains our top priority. Patients are treated according to clinical need, and those requiring urgent attention are seen promptly, however when we are facing high demand those with minor or less urgent needs may find that they are waiting longer.

“This demand on services meant that some patients experienced a delay and we are sorry where this was the case.

“We value patient feedback and, although we cannot comment on individual cases, we would welcome the opportunity to discuss the patient’s concerns directly.

“They can do this by contacting our Patient Experience Team.”

Scarborough Hospital has been in the spotlight after a doctor spoke out about the pressures staff are facing.

Dr Adrian Harrop, an A&E doctor at Scarborough Hospital, took to social media on Twitter to reveal what the “broken and underfunded system looks like”.

York Teaching Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, which runs Scarborough and Bridlington Hospital, has said cases for cancelling operations are being reviewed on an individual basis.

But the pressures on Scarborough’s accident and emergencydepartment are rapidly increasing. Patients have been waiting up to nine hours to see a doctor and many have spent hours on trolleys as the number of beds available plummet.

Last week, Dr Harrop claimed the last available space had gone.

He said: “I have no more capacity to offer, even to the sickest of the sick patients. This is unsafe.”

He later tweeted: “We are now at the stage of declaring a major incident. We are no longer able to offer safe of adequate care to the patients in our hospital.

“This is a critical and unmanageable situation, and the plan as it stands at the moment is not working. This is a crisis.”

A major incident was declared three years ago at Scarborough Hospital in January 2015 because of an unexpectedly high demand for its services.

But the trust says that it is currently at a stage where it needs to declare the status of a major incident.

A spokesperson for York Teaching Hospital NHS Foundation Trust said:

“Like all hospitals across the country, Scarborough Hospital has been exceptionally busy over recent weeks with a high number of emergency attendances and a lot of very ill patients.

“The hospital is currently coping well under very difficult circumstances and we would like to thank our staff for their continued hard work and commitment to our patients under intense pressure. We have been urging people to only come to the Emergency Department in an emergency situation.

“This will ensure that we can dedicate our resources to the most acutely ill patients.”

Across the UK, non-urgent treatments have already been cancelled until mid-January, but NHS England said on Tuesday that this would now be extended to the end of the month.

“The trust says operations and appointments at Scarborough are being reviewed on an individual basis and only those operations that can be safely deferred to a later date will be re-arranged.