Leicester Royal Infirmary: Criticism over long A&E wait time

We have been able to gather that some patients said they slept on waiting room seats or were sent to a tent in the car park.

Some patients at the Leicester Royal Infirmary (LRI) also told the BBC they waited hours to be seen and even longer to be given beds.

The hospital said that compared to 350 to 500 patients it was seeing in a day before the pandemic, it was now seeing over 800 patients daily.

The NHS bosses while issuing an apology said that the reason for this revolved around issues surrounding access to GPs and social care.

Latest figures from March show that only 55% of patients were dealt with after four hours of arriving at the LRI whereas the target is 95%.

Kevin Draycott told BBC Radio Leicester his 79-year-old mother June went to A&E on Friday afternoon and despite being told she was a priority case due to an infection in her arm, she spent all night sitting on hard plastic chairs.

He said: “The staff have gone above and beyond and even they said it was disgusting,” How could they leave such an elderly lady in A&E for such a long time without a bed? It is just unbelievable.

“My mum was a very fit lady and I have never seen her like this.”

According to Mr Draycott, it was not until 13:30 BST on Saturday that his mother was finally given a bed and was still under treatment.

Also, Lauren Hutchman said her 85-year-old grandfather, Brian O’Connell, spent 23 hours sitting in A&E in April. She said that after she had been told there was a 10-hour wait for an ambulance, she drove Brian to the hospital arriving at 23:30 but he was only admitted to a ward at 22:30 the next day.

“He was sitting in the waiting room all that time which wasn’t a nice experience at all. There were drunk people there, there were people arguing and fighting and abusing staff. He wasn’t feeling very well anyway and of course he couldn’t get any sleep there,” she said.

Thankfully, Mr O’Connell recovered after being kept overnight and given antibiotics.

Other patients complained they were sent to a tent in the car park, and claimed they felt like “refugees”.

Andrew Furlong, medical director of the University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust, apologised for the problems and said; “I’ve worked in the NHS for 30 years and it is as tough as it’s ever been.

“Our staff are working incredibly hard but they are finding it very difficult with the way facilities are and the access to beds and the waits for patients at the moment.

“It’s a tough one in terms of how we fix this – I think people need more access to their GPs and we desperately need more access to social care.”

He also advised that people should be sure they need to come to the A&E before coming.

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Accident and emergency claims are one of the important areas of medical negligence claims which we handle. We believe that people who come to the A&E department should be given prompt care and when this is not done causing them to suffer avoidable pain, complications or even death, claims can be made.

We therefore encourage you to call on 0800 644 4240 if you have suffered from such medical negligence as our professional experts are always available at your service to help you make claims and be compensated adequately.