An investigation has been launched after a woman died days after being found unconscious underneath her coat while waiting in A&E for seven hours.
The 39-year-old woman is understood to have first attended A&E at Queen’s Medical Centre in Nottingham on the evening of 19 January complaining of a severe headache. She was triaged and then observed by nurses three times. Her case was escalated but she was not seen by a doctor before being discovered.
When the woman was called to see a doctor, she did not respond. It was assumed that she had left A&E because she had waited so long. She was discovered and transferred to intensive care but died three days later on 22 January.
A source familiar with the hospital told LBC, which first reported the incident, that the A&E department could have up to 80 patients waiting at a single time and that wait times could be as long as 14 hours.
Dr Keith Girling, the medical director at Nottingham university hospitals NHS trust, said: “I offer my sincere condolences to the family at this difficult time. An investigation, which will involve the family, will now take place and until this has been concluded, we are unable to comment further.”
The case could be escalated to an external independent investigation, depending on the outcome of the investigation.
The Nottingham South MP, Lilian Greenwood, told the BBC she was “deeply shocked” by the incident. “It is now really important that there is a full investigation into this and to get to the circumstances into this case,” she said.
A record 420,000 patients had to wait more than 12 hours in A&E last year, analysis released last month by the Liberal Democrats has shown. The latest NHS England figures revealed a 20% increase on 2022 in people facing lengthy delays after a decision to admit them to hospital from the emergency department.
In 2023, 419,560 people – or one in 15 A&E patients – faced “trolley waits” of 12 hours or more, the highest number since records began in 2011, which amounts to an average of 1,150 patients a day.
Significant waits in A&E have been linked to excess deaths and increased harm to patients, as their condition could deteriorate before they are admitted or given a bed on a ward.
In 2022, 23,003 people died after spending at least 12 hours in an A&E waiting for care or to be admitted to a bed, according to the Royal College of Emergency Medicine (RCEM), equating to roughly one person every 23 minutes.
Last September, Nottinghamshire police announced they had launched a criminal investigation into maternity failings at Nottingham university hospitals (NUH) NHS trust, after hundreds of families raised concerns to an independent review. The trust was fined a record £800,000 last January after admitting to failings in the care of a woman and her baby, who died minutes after being born.
A recent assessment by the Care Quality Commission said Queen’s Medical Centre required improvement, including for its urgent and emergency services.
