Shadow Health Secretary Wes Streeting has described the crisis affecting NHS hospitals as a “disgrace” after it emerged that a terminally ill cancer patient was forced to sleep on the floor of A&E because there were no beds available.
Madeleine Butcher underwent a hysterectomy 18 months ago after being diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 2022.
The 62-year-old from Blackpool had since been diagnosed with terminal cancer and had visited A&E on several occasions due to sepsis following her chemotherapy treatment.
Her husband John, 61, told The Blackpool Gazette in previous incidents that she has been in hospital for 10 days on antibiotics, an IV and fluids to control the infection.
But this time, when he took Mrs Butcher to Blackpool’s Victoria Hospital at around 3am on Sunday, he was “horrified”.
Terminal cancer patient Madeleine Butcher, 61, was left on the floor of Blackpool Victoria Hospital’s A&E with just a blanket and pillow after staff said there were no beds available.
Mrs. Butcher had blood tests about half an hour after arriving and saw a doctor more than three hours later, who agreed she probably suffered from sepsis, the newspaper reported.
But despite her prognosis, she was told she could have to wait up to 36 hours in emergency to be treated.
Mrs Butcher, who not only has a tumour but also a hernia due to her operation, told hospital staff she felt uncomfortable and could no longer sit up.
However, after asking if there was a bed, a cart, or even a recliner she could use to get comfortable, she was told “there was nothing available.”
Instead, a doctor gave him a blanket and a pillow so he could lie on the floor.
‘I was absolutely horrified. I didn’t realise how angry I was until I got home and looked at the picture of her on the floor,’ Butcher told The Gazette.
Furious, he could not understand how a doctor could think it was acceptable for his wife, a terminally ill patient, to lie on the floor.
However, the nurses took action and managed to find a trolley within half an hour of seeing what had happened.
But he believes it should have been resolved earlier.
Commenting on the case, Mr Streeting said: ‘This is what the Conservatives have done to our NHS and it is a disgrace.
‘Rishi Sunak should have the decency to apologise to this poor woman.
“The NHS is crying out for change, and only the Labor Party has a plan to deliver it.”
Marie Forshaw, interim chief executive of Nursing, Midwifery, Allied Health Professionals and Quality, said they received a formal complaint about Ms Butcher’s care.
“I would like to thank you for coming forward and I am very sorry that the quality of care you received did not meet the high standards our patients should expect,” he said.
Data from NHS England revealed that 54,000 patients spent more than 48 hours in A&E and almost 19,000 spent the equivalent of three days, many of them without even a trolley to wait on.
Waits of more than 12 hours for emergency care have increased 100-fold since 2019, with 40 percent of patients waiting much longer than four hours to be discharged, transferred or admitted.
This comes after A&E nurses were caught on film laughing that they were not hitting their targets after admitting one of their patients had already waited 46 hours for care.
The shocking state of NHS care was laid bare after a Channel 4 Dispatches reporter infiltrated the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital emergency room, posing as a healthcare assistant in training.