Gloucestershire Royal A&E patients face wait of up to nine hours

Emergency departments across the country are experiencing record-breaking attendance figures

Patients attending an accident and emergency department have had to wait up to nine hours to be seen.

Figures for Gloucestershire Royal Hospital's A&E showed a wait time of 509 minutes on Wednesday morning.

A woman who had an eye injury following a dog attack said she was left alone "in darkness" with her eyes bandaged.

The hospital trust said it was under unprecedented pressure and was "sorry to learn of these patient's experiences".

The woman's husband called an ambulance to their home in Gloucester at 22:30 BST on Sunday before she was taken to Gloucestershire Royal.

'Just horrendous'

She waited for nine hours to be seen by a doctor, to then be told she needed to travel to Cheltenham General to be seen by a specialist.

"I couldn't see a thing. I knew I needed stitches, so all the time I was worried my eyes were healing, but healing incorrectly, and thinking they were going to have to cut me open again to re-stitch," she said.

"It was just horrendous, being on my own, nobody came in, there was no reassurance. I wasn't allowed my husband.

"I know they are busy, I know they are short staffed, but the whole point is it is A&E, and I needed emergency treatment."

Adam Thomas said he gave up and went home after waiting four hours for the results of an x-ray

Adam Thomas, from Stroud, had to go to A&E Tuesday night after injuring his forearm while playing football.

He said he was referred to the x-ray department fairly quickly, but then waited for four hours for the results before giving up and going home.

"People were getting so frustrated, which is why I left. I wasn't prepared to wait until 05:00 in the morning," he said.

"It just seemed that it was so understaffed, there were about 40 people waiting to be seen."

Nationally emergency departments are experiencing record-breaking attendance figures and the Royal College of Emergency Medicine has said there is a serious problem in urgent and emergency care.

'Clearly falls short'

The NHS target is for at least 95% of patients attending A&E to be admitted, transferred or discharged within four hours.

Gloucestershire Hospital's NHS Trust is asking people to think carefully about whether they could be treated somewhere else.

Medical director professor Mark Pietroni said the experience of those patients "clearly falls short of the care we strive to achieve and manage to deliver on the majority of occasions".

He added that "unprecedented levels of pressure" meant patients are experiencing "much longer waits than any of us aspire to" but that they continue to treat patients in accordance with their clinical priority.