Daughter shares her experience of spending four days in 'war zone' Wigan A&E with her mum before she died

Hospital bosses have apologised today, admitting that they failed to provide the “fundamentals of care” for 70-year-old Angela Pomfret which should be there even when services are under extreme pressure

Nicki Yates described the chaotic scenes she encountered at the casualty unit with her mum.

The widow was taken to the hospital on the morning of Tuesday, December 9 by ambulance, as her doctor thought she was having either a heart attack or angina.

But she had to wait four days for a bed to become available on a ward – and was shocked by what she experienced in A&E.

Mrs Yates, 45, said: “Unfortunately it’s a war zone.”

When she first arrived at the hospital, Ms Pomfret, from Leigh, was placed in a corridor outside the resuscitation area.

Mrs Yates said: “There were paramedics coming in, but there was not a spare bed at all in the hospital. They couldn’t even find trolleys. Paramedics were going in but couldn’t go anywhere because they literally had no beds at all. They were stuck there for four or five hours.”

Ms Pomfret was then moved to another corridor and then another.

Mrs Yates says nursing staff had been deployed from other parts of the hospital to help and did not realise they had to get food for the patients.

When they found out, the food had all gone, said Mrs Yates, so her mother was not given anything to eat at lunchtime or teatime.

Mrs Yates says she took a 93-year-old woman to the toilet, because there were no staff available to help her.

Ms Pomfret was then moved to another corridor, where there was “no dignity whatsoever”, she said.

"There were men pulling out catheters with no clothes on.

"My mum had COPD and was in the corridor practically touching beds with a man with type A flu. The lady with him told me to put a mask on because type A flu is highly contagious.”

Mrs Yates recalled a doctor telling her mother that she could possibly have cancer, while she was still on the corridor “right in front of everyone and with no privacy.”

And she claims she saw a woman get on a bed which still had someone else’s blood on it.

Ms Pomfret was eventually moved to Lowton ward on Friday morning, four days after she arrived at the hospital.

But, sadly, she died on Monday night, leaving her two children and two grandchildren.

After spending those days in the A&E unit, Mrs Yates said she did not blame hospital staff, who were working tirelessly while inundated with patients.

"There’s just no end in sight. You literally go in there and think ‘this isn’t going to end,’” she said.

“And it’s going to get worse, especially if the weather starts to change and if it’s going to get colder, you are going to end up with the slips and falls.”

Wigan Today was also contacted by another reader who took her daughter to A&E on the evening of Tuesday December 16 and said she had “never seen anything like it.”

The woman, who did not want to be identified, said: “We got there and it said on the sign that 156 patients were waiting to be seen and that there was a six-hour wait.

"The thing is, there hardly seemed to be any staff. There was one nurse and a couple of triage people racing around trying to do everything.

"There was one guy covered in blood who looked like he was the victim of a very serious assault and another who had been in a car accident. Then there was a lady of 90 with pneumonia and someone who had been there three days. They were all waiting for hours and hours.

"There was no cleaner; the toilets were full of blood, members of the public were chasing round trying to find staff and when someone was sick on the floor, they were taking it upon themselves to clear it up because there weren’t any staff to do it.

"By 3am we gave up. I felt so sorry for those we left behind.”

Mary Fleming, chief executive Officer, of Wrightington, Wigan and Leigh Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (WWL), said: “I would like to offer my deepest condolences and heartfelt sympathies to Mrs Pomfret’s family.

"I am truly sorry for the distressing experience her family endured during such a difficult and painful time.

"This is clearly not the level of care we want anyone to receive at any of our hospitals, and we have let this patient, and her family, down.

“Even when our services are under extreme pressure, the fundamentals of care - dignity, compassion, and timely support – are vital, and it is deeply upsetting to know that we have not provided this.

“In response to the rising demand over recent weeks, we have now increased our nursing staff levels and senior nursing leadership to enhance the quality of patient care, especially during peak times and when addressing the needs of patients in overcrowded departments.

"We are dedicated to ensuring our staff have the resources they need to provide essential care while patients wait to be admitted to the hospital and increased oversight is in place to provide further assurance that improvements are being made whilst we manage the current increase in demand within our department.

“I apologise to patients who have faced long admission waits or did not receive the experience we aim to provide whilst they have been with us during this period of heightened demand.

“I would also like to extend my invitation to Mrs Pomfret’s family, to discuss their experiences when they feel ready, so that we can review what happened in detail and ensure we learn from this experience.”