Family’s disgust at 91-year-old’s hospital trauma

A hospital has apologised to a 91-year-old woman who spent 21/2 hours on a trolley in a corridor at a hospital she should not have been taken to.

Mrs Irene Stansall then had to spend the night in A&E at Grantham Hospital because no ward beds were available.

Her family say what happened was undignified and disgusting.

Mrs Stansall suffered a bladder infection.

She was taken to Grantham Hospital at 8pm on Bank Holiday Tuesday with abdominal pains after a diamond jubilee party at the Doreword Court sheltered housing scheme, Balderton.

While praising the medical care she received, her son-in-law, Mr Trevor Lambert, of Alvey Road, Balderton, said: “It shouldn’t happen to anyone, let alone a woman of 91.

“What happened to my mother-in-law was undignified and disgusting.”

He compared Mrs Stansall’s experience to that of the Duke of Edinburgh, who also contracted a bladder infection during the jubilee celebrations.

“Prince Philip is a royal and you would expect there to be no delay in treatment but you would also hope a commoner would receive a satisfactory service at least.

“Imagine the outcry if Prince Philip was left on an ambulance trolley for 21/2 hours and spent the night in A&E because there were no beds. It simply wouldn’t happen.”

Mandy Charles, matron for medical services at Grantham Hospital, said: “During the jubilee festivities, Grantham Hospital experienced an unexpected surge of patients in the evening.

“Usually we would expect the peak period to be in the afternoon rather than the late evening and unfortunately this meant this patient could not be seen as quickly as we would have wished.

“Grantham Hospital prides itself on its high levels of customer care, especially in A&E, but in this particular instance we failed to meet these high standards and we would like to apologise to this patient for that.”

Mrs Stansall was taken to hospital in Newark and Sherwood NHS Clinical Commissioning Group’s new ambulance.

Mr Lambert said he overheard the ambulance crew being told at the hospital Mrs Stansall should have been taken to Lincoln Hospital.

The new ambulance was brought in to ease the pressure on East Midlands Ambulance Service by looking after urgent non-999 patient transfers in Newark.

It is understood the crew staffing it that weekend were from Halifax and had not been given a list of protocols saying where patients with certain conditions should be taken.

The chief executive of EMAS, Mr Phil Milligan, said: “We expected to be under additional pressure over the jubilee weekend and decided to introduce this new resource earlier than originally planned.

“We also utilised an external provider because we have not had time to recruit staff.

“We took the patient to the nearest hospital where we judged that appropriate care could be given.

“The vehicle does not respond to emergency calls and so the time spent waiting at Grantham Hospital had no impact on our response times to 999 calls in the Newark area.”