Traumatised patients and exhausted staff speak out after a week that took our NHS crisis to a new, terrifying level
The Royal Liverpool Hospital declared a critical incident amid chaotic scenes in its A&E
In a week in which three crisis-hit Merseyside hospitals declared critical incidents, patients and staff have spoken out on the harrowing circumstances inside our region’s Accident and Emergency departments. Emergency rooms in hospitals across Merseyside are in chaos right now as soaring rates of flu and other respiratory diseases pile enormous pressure onto a system that was already creaking.
Some patients have reported waiting as long as three days to make it from the hospital doors to a bed on a ward. Huge queues of ambulances can be seen parked up outside the doors of hospitals as frustrated paramedics spend their entire shifts waiting with individual patients in their vehicles just to get into the bedlam of A&E.
Once inside, many elderly patients are waiting for days on trolleys in packed corridors, some developing bedsores during their endless waits. Last weekend, the Wirral University Teaching Hospital Trust, which manages Arrowe Park Hospital, declared the first of what would be two critical incidents in a matter of days.
The measure is taken when a hospital is so overwhelmed with demand it may struggle to safely deliver critical services and means special measures are taken to try and tackle the ‘unprecedented’ pressure.
While that incident was stood down early in the week, the trust announced a second critical incident on Wednesday. An internal message to staff said: “The high demand has culminated in significant volumes of patients requiring admission, the levels of which require the Trust to declare a critical incident to maintain patient safety.”
A day earlier, on Tuesday, The Royal Liverpool Hospital had taken the same extreme measure. A spokesperson said the hospital was dealing with ‘exceptionally high demands’. An earlier notice to staff said the longest wait for a patient making their way through A&E was a shocking 91 hours.
The Royal Liverpool Hospital declared a critical incident amid chaotic scenes in its A&E
Then on Thursday, Whiston Hospital also declared a critical incident. The trust which manages the hospital described ‘incredibly high demand’ for its urgent and emergency services before pleading with people to only attend A&E if they have a ‘genuine emergency.’
All week the ECHO has been speaking to patients and staff caught up in the chaos of the crises in our region’s hospitals. We have been sent images from inside the hospitals as they struggle to cope with the pressure they are faced with.
One patient who attended the A&E at the Royal Liverpool last weekend spoke of distressing scenes inside the hospital as desperately stretched staff tried to deal with the volume of people needing treatment.
The man said: “The whole experience was horrible, it was just horrific for everyone. The A&E was packed to the rafters, every hallway was packed with paramedics and people in beds.
“They were trying to move people out of the emergency department wards into other wards, but all the other wards were full. So they were moving people into corridors, but then they ran out of porters to do that. It was just chaos all night.”
He added: “When I finally got put onto the majors ward, it was so busy, like you wouldn’t believe. I heard people were having seizures out in the hallway. In the corridor, all the way down it there were people in wheelchairs and beds waiting, with paramedics waiting. People were clearly distressed.”
He added: “A doctor came in to see me the next morning and he looked like he hadn’t slept in a while. Everyone is just in overdrive and on overtime.”
A senior doctor at the University Hospitals of Liverpool Group – which includes Aintree, the Royal and Broadgreen Hospitals, explained more about the wider impact that the current crisis is having on the city’s hospitals, stretching beyond A&E. He said: “There is a lot of pressure in the emergency departments. We are opening extra beds at Broadgreen Hospital to try and help but the exit out of hospitals is difficult when many people need help at home or a nursing home. Older patients get frailer in hospital. We need a faster fix for social care before 2028.
“We’ve opened up an overflow ward on the Broadgreen site, but when there are three wards of people waiting for beds, this just seems like sticking plaster over a major bleed.”
There were worrying scenes in Arrowe Park as the hospital decalred two critical incidents within a week
He added: “For the patients being moved between hospitals it’s not good either. The majority of them will be older patients who are more likely to get confused by being moved and might end up in hospital for longer because of that.” The doctor confirmed that surgery has now stopped at the Broadgreen site to try and help with lessen the impact at the other two hospitals.
He said: “This is not ideal and creates a load of new problems. but we have to weigh up risk of leaving people in a corridor at the Royal vs making people wait longer for hip or knee replacements who might already have waited for 18 months.”
‘It was horrific in that A&E department’
Across the water at Arrowe Park Hospital, things are just as bleak. Kirsty Gray described ‘horrific’ scenes in the hospital’s A&E department after her 80-year-oldf dad Colin was taken in with heart issues. In total he would spend more than 40 hours on a trolley in a corridor and would not begin his actual treatment for an entire week.
Ms Gray said: “It was horrific in that A&E department, it was absolutely rammed. There were 15 ambulances queuing up outside and lots of paramedics who couldn’t hand their patients over. There were long queues of people in beds in the corridor.”
She added: “My mum stayed with dad all night while he was in a bed on a packed corridor. She said the staff were amazing and looked after them as well as they could, but he was there for over 40 hours in total. This was an 80-year-old man, basically shoved against a wall in a corridor who was very poorly.
“Dad was in was in hospital for a week before any proper treatment was done. He was exhausted and angry at the state of the NHS. He was really upset to see the staff members working in these circumstances.”
At the same hospital around the same time, another elderly man was facing a similarly exhausting wait in similarly chaotic circumstances. His daughter, who asked not to be named, said when they entered the A&E they were told it would be a 7-10 hour wait to see a doctor.
The 84-year-old man, who has dementia and what appeared to be a severe chest infection, would develop a bed sore from the 24 hours he spent waiting in a seat before being moved to a trolley on a corridor with many others.
His daughter explained: “From A&E down the corridors, both sides were lined with beds. They are ambulance beds and until those people have been transferred to the hospital the ambulances can’t go back out. That’s why there are no ambulances out there. There is nowhere in the hospital to put these people. It’s dreadful. There were people waiting in that A&E for three days. It is bedlam in there.”
There were worrying scenes in Arrowe Park as the hospital decalred two critical incidents within a week
“I was talking to the nurses, who were lovely with my dad. I’m not complaining about the staff just the whole situation. It was a 70 hour wait from A&E to get a bed It is just terribly, terribly full.”
‘The future of the NHS doesn’t feel great’
Merseyside, like much of the country, is experiencing soaring rates of flu right now and one healthcare worker we spoke to at Arrowe Park explained the impact this is having on staff, patients and supplies. She said: “We’re finding that flu is just absolutely raging through the hospital.
“We have been told to only test patients we are sure have flu because we are running low on tests already and the flu season still has about six weeks left. There have been issues getting hold of masks as well which is a concern. We are trying to discourage vulnerable people from coming to visit loved ones because people are coming into hospital and getting sicker. It is really worrying.
She added: “It is hard seeing people so unwell. I’ve got so many patients and they are all so sick. The future of the NHS doesn’t feel great.”
Whiston Hospital’s critical incident declaration came after worrying scenes of huge numbers of ambulances queuing outside the facility, sometimes waiting for days with patients in the back of them. One paramedic who regularly works from the hospital told us that he believes the health system has effectively collapsed now.
He said: “Every year we think it can’t get any worse and then it does. But this is like no other year. I have never seen anything close to this.
“It is happening all over Merseyside, there is just so much pressure in the hospitals and it is cascading onto the ambulance service. The vast majority of A and E departments are now effectively seeing parked up ambulances as an extension of their emergency rooms. “We feel like we are letting patients down every day and there is nothing we can do. I have seen patients really decline in the hours they are in the back of ambulances because they really need hospital care.
What the hospitals said about their critical incidents
A spokesperson for the University Hospitals of Liverpool Group, which oversees the running of the Royal Liverpool Hospital, said: “Given the exceptionally high demands on our emergency department, especially with flu and respiratory illnesses, and the number of patients we have taken this action to support the safe care and treatment of our patients, which is our absolute priority.
“We have a comprehensive plan in place and are taking all the necessary actions to manage the challenging circumstances facing patients and colleagues currently. We are working with partner organisations to ensure those that are medically fit can leave hospital safely and at the earliest opportunity.
“Colleagues are working incredibly hard to treat people as quickly as possible, however some people will experience longer waits while we treat our sickest patients.
“If it is not a medical emergency please consider using other services, such as your GP, local pharmacy or walk-in centre. The NHS 111 service can be used to help identify the most appropriate service for you and help avoid long waits.”
The spokesperson added: “We have seen an increasing number of people with flu and respiratory illnesses in our emergency departments in recent weeks. If you are attending our EDs, patients and visitors should follow some additional infection control measures to help curb the spread of winter viruses such as flu and norovirus. This includes practicing good hand hygiene, only visiting the areas they need to in our hospitals and wearing masks in clinical areas if asked to do so.”
A spokesperson for the Wirral University Hospitals Trust – which runs Arrowe Park – said: “A Wirral University Teaching Hospital spokesperson said:
“Similar to other Trusts, our Emergency Department has experienced extreme demand with a high number of patients attending and we have prioritised those in most urgent need of emergency care. This has unfortunately meant a longer than expected wait for other patients, especially those awaiting hospital admission. Many patients have required hospital admission, including a high number of flu cases.
“Our staff have been working tirelessly during this busy period to maintain patient safety and we aim to maintain the highest standards of patient dignity. We would like to offer the opportunity for the family to speak to our Patient Experience Team so that we can listen to any concerns they have.
“We have been working with our partners to discharge patients home or back into the community, as soon as they no longer require a hospital stay so that we can increase bed availability for patients being admitted. To help prevent the spread of infections in our hospitals, we are working to strict infection, prevention and control standards. Visitors are asked to not attend if they have cold or flu symptoms and also to ensure they wash their hands when entering wards.
“At this time we continue to ask the public for their assistance, to ensure the Emergency Department can treat those in most urgent need. We ask people to please only attend the Emergency Department if they have an emergency. If it’s not an emergency they can contact 111, visit an urgent treatment centre, a walk-in centre, a GP or a pharmacist.”
A spokesperson for Mersey and West Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, which runs Whiston Hospital, said: “The incredibly high demand for our urgent and emergency services over the past week saw us declare a critical incident at Whiston Hospital in an effort to ensure we could provide the safest care possible Our staff continue to do all they can to support our patients and we would ask people to only attend the Emergency Department if they have a genuine emergency.
“For less urgent needs, people can contact 111, visit a walk-in centre, urgent treatment centre or contact a GP or their local pharmacy for help with many minor illnesses.”