Last week, a hospital trust in Bury offered its condolences to the family of an elderly patient who died in the back of an ambulance after waiting a reported three hours just to get into A&E.
Doctors came out to try to treat the patient in the vehicle, but unfortunately to no avail. It’s the sort of story that sounds as if it should be a shocking one-off, but may soon become more common. One anonymous paramedic spoke afterwards to the Manchester Evening News of patients waiting for up to eight hours in ambulances, being treated inside them, and then being driven home without ever actually managing to get through the doors of a hospital that was full to overflowing.
