Patient kept in hospital 'cupboard'

The NHS has been under increasing pressure in recent months, but for Michael Steel the consequences were particularly extreme.

A lack of space meant his bed was moved to a stock room and left there for three days at the Princess Alexandra Hospital in Harlow.

Mr Steel told Today: "I went back into hospital for a liver complaint and after three days ...they woke me up in the middle of the night and moved me to what I thought was another room."

"As the day wore on and it got light I realised I was basically in a cupboard."

"The nurses explained that they were so short of bed-space that they had put me in there for the time being."