AN 89-year-old was forced to wait 18 hours on a trolley in the corridor of A&E before being seen.

The target for A&E wards is to have patients admitted, transferred or discharged within four hours. 

Pauline Brook's family was told by hospital staff at Royal Lancaster Infirmary it was not 'over the top' busy.

When Ms Brook started having symptoms last week, she was initially told over the phone that she probably had COVID.

However, when her leg started to swell at 1am on Sunday morning she was picked up by paramedics. She was suffering from cellulitis and needed antibiotics delivered intravenously (IV).

This was also just a few hours after Ms Brook learned that her sister had died.

Although Ms Brook did not blame the hospital staff, saying that they were 'doing their best under difficult conditions,' she was not able to speak to her daughter until she was admitted because she did not have a mobile phone with her.

"It was not a nice experience," she said. "I was put in a queue of people on trollies, and all I saw the backs of the people in front of me. It was mixed, with some men and some women. There was a lot of coming and going of trollies being moved here. In the end I was with a lot of other people.

"Some staff asked if you would like a drink like a cup of tea or water, or would you like a sandwich? Because of my leg, I did not want anything anyway."

READ MORE: University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay: May's waiting times for the trust

Ms Brook thought that she could have been transferred to Kendal for her IV, saying that the RLI is 'too small' for the amount of demand it gets.

Her daughter Sarah Dickinson said: "The place is in crisis, absolute crisis. I don't understand how we've got into this situation."

Bridget Lees, Executive Chief Nurse, University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay NHS Foundation Trust, said: "We are continuing to run at extremely high levels of bed occupancy; and like a number of other hospitals across the country, we are seeing high demand for our services. At times, this can mean that patients wait longer to be seen and admitted than we would like."  

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