Worcestershire Royal Hospital A&E corridor deaths inquiry call

One patient at Worcestershire Royal Hospital died from cardiac arrest after waiting 35 hours in a corridor, while another who had an aneurysm was taken into the resuscitation area but died

An investigation is needed after two people died waiting for treatment in a hospital corridor, a patients' watchdog says.

Some patients at Worcestershire Royal Hospital are said to have been waiting up to 54 hours over the Christmas and New Year period.

One person died from cardiac arrest after waiting 35 hours and a second had an aneurysm and died despite treatment, the BBC understands.

The trust said it was not commenting.

Peter Pinfield, chairman of Healthwatch Worcestershire - the patient care watchdog for the county - has called for an investigation saying the public needed to know the reasons behind the delays.

There is no evidence to connect the deaths with winter pressures on the hospital.

More on this and other stories from Hereford and Worcester

Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust said patient confidentiality prevented it from discussing the deaths, but added it had "robust plans" to maintain patient safety and emergency care.

John Freeman said his wife spent 38 hours on a trolley on New Year's Day following a stroke. He told BBC News there were many others in the same situation.

"My wife was stuck on a trolley right next to the fire doors on a corridor and she couldn't get any sleep because all the trolleys were banging into the fire doors going in and out, so they stuck her in the plaster room which is ridiculous," he said.

Services have been moved from the Alexandra Hospital in Redditch to Worcester

Robin Walker, Conservative MP for Worcester, said lengthy delays at accident and emergency were "unacceptable", and would be meeting Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt on Monday.

But he said a "significant expansion" of A&E was needed as it is now serving the whole of Worcestershire when it was built in the 1990s to just cater for people living in Worcester.

"What I really want it to make sure is, that we get the new management that have been brought in to run the trust working with the government to deliver that on the shortest possible timescale."

Meanwhile, a group campaigning to keep services at the Alexandra Hospital in Redditch has disbanded after four-and-a-half years.

The Save the Alex group said it did not feel it was being listened to by bosses running Worcestershire's hospitals.

On Friday the trust launched a consultation on planned changes to acute hospital services in the county which could see more patients going from Redditch to Worcester for emergency treatment.

Neal Stote, Save the Alex chairman, said the consultation was "too little, too late".

"From a campaigning point of view we have lost," he said.

A spokesman for the trust said the model outlined in the consultation would provide safe and sustainable hospital services to residents for many years.