Child had to wait six days for a hospital bed as NHS remains overstretched
Harley Tamplin for Metro.co.uk
A child had to wait six days to be given a hospital bed in the NHS’s longest recorded ‘trolley wait’.
The mental health patient was forced to wait 145 hours before a bed became available for them at Derby Teaching Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, the Mirror reported.
Many other patients have waited more than 24 hours for a bed, according to freedom of information data obtained by Labour.
So-called ‘trolley waits’ refer to people who need a hospital bed but have to wait, sometimes on trolleys, before one is free.
The hospital in Derby said it was a ‘highly unusual lengthy wait’ but the child was not on a trolley.
It also said the patient was ‘safely cared for’ in the hospital’s paediatric assessment unit.
Other long waits included a patient at East Lancashire Hospital NHS Trust who was finally given a bed after 70 hours and 22 minutes.
Waits of 46 hours and 44 minutes and 40 hours and 44 minutes were recorded at Royal Devon and Exeter NHS Foundation Trust and Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust respectively.
Some 1,043 patients had a wait of longer than 12 hours in January alone.
However, waits of that length only apply to 0.06% of emergency admissions, the The Department of Health and Social Care said.
Reply With Quote
