Mounting pressures on hospitals mean that patients are being treated in storerooms, frail and elderly patients are being moved around in the middle of the night and ambulances are queuing outside A&Es, leading nurses have warned.
Major incidents in hospitals are usually seen only in the busy winter months but are now becoming a problem all year round, the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) said.
The college, which is holding its annual congress in Glasgow, said that across England, the hospital sector is feeling the strain of financial pressures and increased demand.
It highlighted a series of issues facing local hospitals that are “adding to the chaos” at hospitals across England. These include:
• Beds being placed in corridors and patients treated in storerooms in order to move people out of A&E.
• Ambulances queuing outside A&E units or the regular use of “jumbulances” – large ambulances which can accommodate multiple patients – to treat patients while they wait to enter the units.
• Patients, often frail older people, being moved at night due to intense pressure for beds.
• Hospitals running with no spare capacity at all.
Full story in The Guardian 21 June 2016