Eyewitness shares horrific story from emergency department amid growing NHS crisis
13:22, 06 Jan 2025Updated 13:25, 06 Jan 2025
Inside a chaotic Accident and Emergency department at the Countess of Chester Hospital
A man described witnessing scenes “like a war zone” in a hospital’s chaotic Accident and Emergency department as pressure in the NHS continues to soar.
Mike Jones became ill just after Christmas and after vomiting violently for three days he ventured to the to the A&E department at the Countess of Chester Hospital on December 27.
Mr Jones, who is 33 and from Ellesmere Port, described chaotic scenes inside the emergency room, including a man clutching his chest and keeling over, as horrified fellow patients looked on.
He said: “As soon as I got in there it was very intense. Every seat was taken and some people were on the floor. As soon as we got in they put a sign up saying the expected wait would be seven hours.”
After swiftly getting triaged, Mr Jones returned to the main A&E room which he says now resembled “a war zone.” He added: “It was just chaos. There was one guy who had come in who was struggling to breathe. He was holding his chest and trying to get to the front desk and was told to get a seat. After a while he sort of keeled over and his partner was screaming. I was just thinking what the hell is going on.”
Concerned about the state of the hospital and the wider NHS, Mr Jones decided to start filming inside the emergency room, footage he passed on to the ECHO to raise awareness, on the agreement that we will blur any faces to hide people’s privacy. We have chosen only to use blurred screengrabs from the footage in this report.
He said: “I just couldn’t believe how bad things were so I thought people should know what is going on. The staff were so stretched but eventually they brought an ECG machine out for the guy who had keeled over but he was getting worse. All of a sudden they realised how bad he was. He shouldn’t have been left like that really but there was no staff.
A man is seen keeling over and being treated in a chair at the Countess of Chester A&E department
“There was an older woman there too, maybe in her 80s. She was with her family and had been told she couldn’t go home and needed a hospital bed. But she had already been there for five hours when we got there and had been told she might not get a bed until the next day. It was horrible to see.”
“I have been to A&E a few times before but this was different, this didn’t feel like the NHS to me anymore. I felt bad filming but I don’t think we can hide away from this, people need to see what is going on because it was so upsetting to see.”
He added: “It feels like there is a nail in the coffin of the NHS,” adds Mike. “It is not the staff on the ground’s fault, you can see they are facing moral decisions every day about who they can treat and who has to wait. I can’t imagine having to make those decisions.”
A spokesperson at the Countess of Chester Hospital NHS Foundation Trust said: “We have a growing number of elderly people in our community with complex health and social care needs and, like many NHS hospitals, demand in our A&E is unprecedented.
“Our staff are working hard to see and treat patients quickly based on the urgency of their needs – regrettably, this means some will have a long wait in a busy environment, which is not the experience they have a right to expect, and for this we are wholeheartedly sorry. Although we are exceptionally busy, we are still here to care for anyone who needs us in an emergency, or if it’s less urgent please use NHS 111 for the most appropriate local service.”
This shocking experience comes amid soaring pressure in the NHS. This weekend the ECHO produced a special report in which staff and patients said they now feel the health service is past the point of collapse. You can read the full report here.