Royal Blackburn Hospital: 'My dad, 80, spent 36 hours on corridor trolley'

A woman has said she was "horrified" after her 80-year-old father with dementia spent 36 hours on a trolley in a hospital corridor after a fall.

Gail Myerscough said her dad, Brian, was taken by ambulance to Royal Blackburn Hospital's A&E department at about 14:00 GMT on Saturday.

She said he was one of dozens of patients "in pain" and in the corridor with "no privacy or dignity".

The BBC has contacted East Lancashire Hospitals NHS trust for a response.

Ms Myerscough said it was "very stressful and so upsetting" to see her father who is from Blackburn in a corridor and looking "so confused" and she had been left "traumatised".

"I've never seen anything like it; I was horrified," the illustrator, from Manchester, said.

She said she had to change him in the corridor.

"He had no privacy or dignity and he couldn't sleep because it was so busy and there was nowhere for us to sit," she said.

Ms Myerscough added that the patients "didn't get fed properly" and were only offered pre-packed sandwiches.

She said "several corridors" were filled with patients on trolleys who looked "in pain".

The 52-year-old said she was "really shocked" to see a sign on her father's trolley which read "corridor care" and felt it was "being normalised".

"Something has to be done," she added.

Patients were warned last week that wait times at the hospital's accident and emergency department were more than 12 hours, due to a "steep rise" in people attending.

The trust said it was facing one of its busiest winters.

Sharon Gilligan, chief operating officer and deputy chief executive at ELHT, added: "It means the department is very crowded and many patients are having to wait over 12 hours which is not what any of us want."

Ms Myerscough praised the staff who tried to help her dad, saying she could not fault them, but felt the hospital was "under-staffed and under-resourced".

"The staff did everything they could under difficult circumstances," she said.

Ms Myerscough said she was relieved when her father was finally placed in a ward in the early hours of Monday.

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