Man who waited 12 hours in A&E after coughing up blood says NHS is ‘out of time’

A flu patient who waited for 12 hours overnight in a hospital emergency department after coughing up blood has said the NHS “isn’t just broken, it is out of time”.

Anthony Goldcrown, 47, from Borehamwood in Hertfordshire, went to the urgent treatment centre at Barnet Hospital on Monday evening after experiencing severe flu symptoms

Mr Goldcrown, who works in sales, said he was among 200 other people who were waiting to be seen by NHS staff, many of whom had similar heavy coughs to his own.

Although he was seen by staff for a chest X-ray and a blood test, he had to call 111 for a prescription after waiting 12 hours overnight to receive results and further treatment.

“I got to A&E at 6.30pm on Monday and it just spiralled from there,” Mr Goldcrown told the PA news agency.

“When I got there, the wait time was eight hours and 20 minutes – every time I went to the reception to check how much longer it was going to be, I was told I had 10 people in front of me.

“At about 7am on Tuesday morning, I was exhausted after not having slept so I just asked if they could send the results to my GP.

“I was told it would take three to five days, but I said if I’ve got pneumonia, three to five days isn’t acceptable.”

Mr Goldcrown’s comments come as NHS data showed there were an average of 5,408 flu patients in beds in England each day last week, including 256 in critical care.

He said that while the staff coped well under such pressure, they were unable to deal with the volume of patients.

“The staff were relatively calm in the face of adversity but when you’ve got 200 people as a starter, and every 20 minutes or half an hour there’s another 10 to 15 people coming in, how do you even start to cope with that?” he said.

“I had somebody take blood from me, who was clearly quite stressed because he struggled every time he tried to get a new tube so he could take more blood, he fumbled it.

“The NHS isn’t just broken, it is out of time – we need changes to be implemented now.”

A number of trusts this week have declared critical incidents, citing exceptional demand caused by the colder weather and respiratory viruses.

Professor Sir Stephen Powis, NHS national medical director, said it was hard to quantify “how tough it is for frontline staff at the moment – with some staff working in A&E saying that their days at work feel like some of the days we had during the height of the pandemic”.

Health and Social Care Secretary Wes Streeting said: “In the past six months, we have ended the junior doctors’ strikes so staff are on the front line, not the picket line, for the first winter in three years, and introduced the new RSV vaccine.

“But despite the best efforts of staff, patients are still receiving unacceptable standards of care.

“Although this winter’s campaign vaccinated more people than last winter, this strain of flu has hit hard, putting more than three times as many patients into hospital compared to this time last year.”

A Royal Free London spokesperson said: “We are very sorry that Mr Goldcrown had such a long wait in our emergency department and hope that he is now recovering well.

“Like many other trusts across the country, we are currently extremely busy.

“We are grateful to our staff who are working incredibly hard to see and treat patients as quickly as possible.”