Patients having to wait in corridors to be admitted to wards at a Nottingham hospital are being given letters of apology which also warn the local NHS is under 'incredible pressure'. The notes, handed to a small number of Queen’s Medical Centre patients in recent days, explain how soaring demand is affecting A&E, wards and ambulance services.
It says some people are ending up waiting in corridors because the hospital is trying to accept more people from ambulances soon after they arrive, to try to avoid delaying crews and therefore reduce pressure in the wider NHS locally. At busy times many hospital trusts across the country choose not to accept patients brought in by ambulance until they have space inside A&E.
This can lead to queues of ambulances outside hospitals waiting to discharge patients. But it is understood Nottingham University Hospitals Trust, which runs the Queen’s Medical Centre, is instead accepting most ambulance patients sooner after they arrive.
