Patients have had to sleep overnight in the A&E unit of one of the NHS’s biggest hospitals because it is overwhelmed by the number of people needing care, a leaked memo reveals. Fifty more beds are being used, 40 boarding in different wards and 20 patients were stuck in ED [the emergency department] as no beds available, resulting in some patients having to sleep overnight in ED. Those who slept overnight in the unit will have been patients whom doctors had decided to admit as medical emergencies but for whom hospital staff had not been able to find a bed. Dr Julia Patterson, the lead for EveryDoctor, a network of frontline NHS medics, said: “This email perfectly illustrates the immense strain that NHS hospitals are currently under. Growing numbers of hospitals are redeploying nurses from wards as “corridor nurses” to look after the queues of patients building up waiting to get a bed.

Source: The Guardian January 19, 2020 18:22 UTC