‘Patients are collapsing in the waiting room’: A&E nurses speak out

The NHS is experiencing intense winter pressure, with critical incidents declared at a dozen hospitals across the UK by Wednesday.

Ahead of a special day of coverage, the BBC has spoken to nurses dealing with demand in A&Es.

“Patients are collapsing in the waiting room. It’s just hectic,” Lorraine, a nurse in Birmingham, told BBC Radio 5 Live on Tuesday.

“This is happening in A&E up and down the country, all areas,” said Joanne, one nurse working in an emergency ward in Manchester. “A&E is in a desperate situation right now.”

“The government need to take urgent action. We need help,” she said.

Without identifying which hospital she worked in, she said there had been 58 patients having to wait in the corridors of her emergency ward on Tuesday night because of a lack of beds. This was happening on a daily basis, she said.

Lorraine, the nurse in Birmingham who works on night-shift, said elderly people and pensioners were among the worst-affected.

“There’s women that are 90 that have been waiting for a bed for 24 hours,” she said.

“We try our best but if there’s no beds what can we really do? We just make the old lady as comfortable as she can, just make sure that she’s okay. But there’s no beds.”

There’s the “chaos” inside wards and then “you go outside, there’s loads of ambulances and it’s just so hectic”.

She said she felt sorry for paramedics who due to the lack of space in hospitals are being forced to hold patients on board “for a long time”.

“And then when we do get them in they need a bed and there isn’t one. It is really bad.”

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer visited a hospital in London’s south-east on Monday, revealing a new plan involving the private healthcare sector to help reduce waiting times for appointments.

But nurses like Lorraine say he needs to witness the reality of emergency wards currently.

“The prime minister should actually sit in the waiting room, see the abuse that we get, the poor old ladies and pensioners, the young people that are trying to kill themselves, people collapsing, people having cardiac arrests in the waiting room,” she said.

“It’s 2025- we shouldn’t be seeing this.”

On Wednesday, Health Secretary Wes Streeting said he was ashamed of the crisis of “patients languishing in hospital corridors” but says it’s not looking like it getting better any time soon.

NHS bosses have said the hospital system is under strain due to the surge in flu cases, where about 5,000 are being reported every day.

Lorraine in Birmingham had just come off a night shift when she spoke to the BBC.

“The waiting time was over 14 hours and it’s just horrendous,” she said.

She said staff were having to work through breaks on 12-hour shifts.

The back-log in emergency care put extra pressure on specialist teams where patients are waiting for surgeries and other operations, she said.

“And then we get abuse as you go into the waiting room to call the patients in, there will be about 20 people there, they’re literally attacking you saying: “Where’s the doctor, where’s my bloods, I need the results.”

“And because they’re sick, you have to kind of understand why they are a little bit angry.”

Speaking about heading in for another shift on Tuesday night, Lorraine said:

“I’m actually dreading it cause it was the worst night ever last night. But I’m gonna try and get some sleep and go in positive. I’m just trying to help the people.”