The son of an 88-year-old woman who was stuck in A&E for more than 60 hours has said it has stolen her dignity.
Maureen Harman was taken to Wigan Infirmary in Greater Manchester on Monday evening, but as of Thursday afternoon had still not been admitted to a ward.
Her son, Nick Harman, said most of that time, Ms Harman was lying on the trolley in a corridor with many other patients.
Wrightington, Wigan and Leigh Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (WWL) apologised for the long waits and said it had been ‘extremely busy’ in a comment to the BBC.
The 56-year-old son said his mother was sitting on the bed ‘getting uncomfortable’ with many other patients, some being escorted by police, drug addicts and others.
He told the BBC: ‘Your dignity is just gone. You’re doing things in the corridor, with people who are strangers.’
The retired dinner lady, from Wigan, had been jaundiced – which is when the skin takes on a yellowish colour – for around a week.
She was taken to A&E on the orders of her ‘very concerned’ GP and she was waiting on a scan to see what was causing this.
Maureen Harman was taken to Wigan Infirmary in Greater Manchester on Monday evening, but as of Thursday afternoon had still not been admitted to a ward
Her son, Nick Harman, said most of that time, Ms Harman was lying on the trolley in a corridor with many other patients
The 56-year-old son said his mother was sat on the bed ‘getting uncomfortable’ with many other patients, some being escorted by police, drug addicts and others
However, Mr Harman said he was shocked when he was told on Monday evening that his mother could be waiting more than 49 hours to be seen.
‘It’s unacceptable in this day and age in Britain,’ he said.
Despite this, he said the staff at the infirmary were ‘brilliant’ but compared the scenes at the A&E as resembling a ‘warzone’.
Wrightington, Wigan and Leigh Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust has been approached for comment.
It comes as a record number of patients were forced to wait at least 12 hours for emergency care last month, damming figures show.
Official data shows 61,529 people waited more than half a day in A&E departments to receive care in January — up 13 per cent on December’s figure.
It comes as separate NHS figures shows the number of bed-blockers — patients well enough to leave hospital but unable to get care at home — hit the highest level this winter, reaching just over 14,000.
Experts urged the Government to address the lack of social care capacity that’s behind the delayed discharges, amid warnings the lack of beds is overwhelming emergency departments.
While the NHS recorded a record number of 12-hour A&E waits, a MailOnline analysis suggests the true extent of the problem is much worse.
The health service highlights so-called trolley waits in their published figures — the time between a medic deciding a patient needs to be admitted to hospital, and when they are given a bed.
Critics claim this underestimates the scale of the problem as it does not tally the total time a patient spends waiting in A&E, from the point when they arrive.
By this metric, the number of over 12-hour waits last month jumped to 172,515 — more than twice the NHS’ estimate. Now, using MailOnline’s exclusive tracker tool below, it’s possible to search for your local NHS Trust, and see the extent of the delays.
That analysis, covering data for December 2024, showed the scale of the A&E crisis was hitting some hospitals harder than others.
The worst offender was Blackpool Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, where just under a third of urgent care patients across its hospitals waited for 12 hours or more In December.
Countess of Chester Hospital NHS Foundation Trust came second with 26.6 per cent of patients facing extreme delays, followed by the Wirral University Teaching Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, where the figure stands at 25 per cent.
The best performing trust was Birmingham Women’s and Children’s NHS Foundation Trust, where just 0.4 per cent of patients wait longer than 12-hours to see a healthcare professional.
