A patient was forced to wait 99 hours for a bed and a seriously ill child had to sleep on plastic chairs in A&E, it emerged this weekend as the full extent of the pressure the NHS is under became clear.
Record numbers of patients are being nursed in corridors in “grossly overcrowded” emergency departments. Dozens of NHS trusts have declared critical incidents in the past three days, with some forced to return to tactics last used at the height of the pandemic.
This has included widespread cancellation of operations, staff being redeployed to areas they are unfamiliar with and patients doubled up in cubicles and side rooms.
Hospitals are running out of portable oxygen because they are overwhelmed with patients suffering from flu, Covid and other respiratory illnesses.
The Sunday Times has been told of chaos across the country, including in:
• Surrey, where GPs were told in an email from Surrey Heartlands Integrated Care Board that hospital mortuaries in the area were nearing capacity.
• Bedfordshire, Luton and Milton Keynes Health and Care Partnership, where staff were told that hospitals were so busy “there is a real possibility we will need to erect tents in hospital grounds”. It appealed for staff willing to take on extra work to come forward.
• York, where a patient waited 40 hours in A&E for a bed on a ward.
• Shropshire, where a patient waited more than 30 hours in an ambulance outside the Princess Royal Hospital in Shrewsbury.
• Walsall, West Midlands, where hospital leaders told staff of “unprecedented” pressure and a “grossly overcrowded” A&E. At times there were more than 40 patients waiting for a bed with some waiting longer than 24 hours and being looked after in corridors.
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The longest wait reported for a bed was at Great Western Hospital, Swindon, where a patient spent 99 hours waiting for a bed last week. The patient came in as an emergency case by ambulance but was left on a trolley for more than four days until a bed became available.
One clinician there said: “We’re broken and nobody is listening.” Jon Westbrook, Great Western’s chief medical officer, told staff in a leaked message: “We are seeing case numbers and [sickness] that we have not seen previously in our clinical careers.”
At the children’s A&E department of John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford, Tom Hook’s three-year-old daughter Heidi was forced to sleep on chairs after hours of waiting to be seen.
He posted a photograph of his daughter online, saying: “Exhausted, dehydrated and fighting multiple illnesses, this is the best the NHS could do, five hours after arriving at A&E and 22 hours after we phoned for help.”
Hook said his daughter, who had scarlet fever and croup, had recovered but added: “The staff throughout were fantastic and clearly doing a nearly impossible job in a broken system that just channels everything to A&E — which then can’t cope with the demand.”
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Across the country, almost 95 per cent of NHS hospital beds are full. More than 12,000 beds are occupied by patients ready to be discharged.
Weekly data published on Friday showed there were 3,746 patients a day in hospital with flu last week, up from 520 a month ago. Of these, 267 were in intensive care.
Hospitals are also beginning to run out of portable oxygen.
At Nottingham University Hospitals Trust junior doctors were told there was a risk it could run out of cylinders this weekend because of a surge in demand. The chief nurse, Michelle Rhodes, told staff to avoid using oxygen cylinders wherever possible.
At Hull University Teaching Hospital Trust on Friday night, the trust warned staff that “due to supply issues, the trust is experiencing short-term disruption to its supply of large oxygen cylinders.” Staff were told patients who needed oxygen should be moved to beds where oxygen could be piped.
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There were also reported problems with supply at hospitals in Liverpool, Crewe, Derby and Durham.
One NHS worker in the southwest of England said: “We are now at the stage where there is not enough oxygen in cylinders to treat patients in corridors, ambulances and in our walk-in area in A&E. Combined with flu, Covid and other respiratory conditions this is beyond Third World medicine.”
Adrian Boyle, president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, said the situation was “extremely serious” adding: “Far too many people are simply stuck in our emergency departments at the moment. The predictable short-term shock of a bad flu season and the long-term consequences of inadequate capacity and workforce planning and investment are creating a perfect storm.”
Chris Hopson, chief strategy officer of NHS England, said: “Over the past week to ten days we have seen flu levels increase significantly, alongside a high number of people with Covid. This simultaneous flu/Covid twindemic is currently taking up 13,000 of the NHS’s 95,000 hospital beds, towards the top end of our ‘most likely’ planning scenario.”
NHS England insisted there was no shortage of oxygen although it admitted there had been a surge in demand for portable cylinders.
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BOC, the main supplier of gas to the NHS, said it was “experiencing unusually high demand”.
