MP reveals elderly patient's 36-hour wait on chair in A&E as she says delays are 'nothing short of a tragedy'
An MP is calling for clinicians to be present in A&E waiting rooms as the latest NHS statistics confirmed Shropshire has some of the worst emergency delays in the country.
Half of patients arriving at A&E in Shrewsbury or Telford in October had to wait four hours or longer to be admitted, transferred or discharged while more than a 1,000 were forced to spend longer than 12 hours in the department.
Helen Morgan, MP for North Shropshire and the Liberal Democrat Spokesperson for Health and Social Care, has tabled a motion in the House of Commons demanding immediate Government action to address the deepening crisis in England’s emergency departments.
The MP sad that recent cases highlighted to her include that of an elderly patient being left to sit on a plastic chair for 36 hours while in considerable medical distress, in public at Royal Shrewsbury Hospital.
Mrs Morgan is meeting the Interim CEO of Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital Trust this week to discuss ongoing challenges in the county.
After years of what she describes as ‘neglect and failure’ under the last Conservative Government, emergency care services are struggling to cope, leaving patients at risk and healthcare workers overwhelmed.
The motion highlights a series of alarming issues, including dangerously long waiting times, reports of patients dying in A&E waiting rooms, and the lack of sufficient clinical monitoring for those waiting to be seen.
She said the crisis has been compounded by the decision to hike national insurance contributions for GPs and care providers, further straining an overstretched system.
In her motion Mrs Morgan called for several urgent measures, including: Ensuring a fully qualified clinician is present in every A&E waiting room to monitor patients; Cutting ambulance response times to ensure life-saving interventions are not delayed; Increasing the number of beds available in A&E departments to address bottlenecks; Reducing delayed discharges to free up hospital capacity; Committing to cross-party talks to create a long-term solution for social care, which is intrinsically linked to emergency care pressures.
She said: "The current state of our emergency departments is nothing short of a tragedy. Patients are being failed when they are at their most vulnerable, and the burden on NHS workers is unsustainable.
“Every hour, lives are being put at risk because of chronic underfunding and poor planning. It’s appalling to hear reports of patients dying in waiting rooms or going unmonitored for hours, including harrowing cases here in Shropshire – this simply cannot continue.
“The Government must act now to restore trust in our NHS. That means putting fully qualified clinicians in every A&E waiting room, cutting ambulance response times, and addressing the wider pressures on hospitals by fixing social care.
“These are not abstract issues; they are matters of life and death. The last Government had years to prepare for this moment, but instead they let services crumble. Enough is enough – we need a change.”
