Shropshire patient left to change in hospital corridor 'felt exposed'

A woman treated in a hospital corridor says the lack of privacy was "wholly inappropriate" after other patients saw her without a top.

Isabel Aston was taken to Princess Royal Hospital in Shropshire with pneumonia and sepsis and said she spent seven hours on a bed in a corridor.

She said she felt exposed when other patients saw her changing her clothes.

The hospital trust said it aimed to maintain patients' dignity despite being under operational pressures.

Ms Aston said patients needed rest and quiet when ill in hospital and the corridor was a "busy thoroughfare".

She explained: "People were walking in both directions [and] there aren't screens around your bed so people wanting the toilet who couldn't get out of bed were faced with the thought of using a bed pan in full view."

She added that on feeling hot at one point, she wanted to change her t-shirt, but the process proved lengthy due to cannulas in her arms.

"I did not have anything on underneath," she said. "I'm 64 years of age, I've probably reached an age where I'm not so self-conscious perhaps, but that could have been a much younger patient.

"That could have been a patient for whom perhaps culturally they couldn't have change their t-shirt... or somebody who had mastectomy scars [and] were very self conscious.

"It is wholly inappropriate for patients to be so exposed when they are so ill."

Ms Aston said she was concerned about other patients' health and safety in the hospital as well as her own and described the hospital as being like a "warzone".

Patients treated on corridors was becoming "normalised" within the NHS, she added.

Ms Aston, from near Bridgnorth, Shropshire, said she had also written to Shropshire Fire and Rescue Service over her ordeal in May, asking whether it was safe to have beds on corridors in the event of a blaze.

She is now recovering at home after spending about four days at the Telford hospital, but said the thought of going back was "frightening".

In a statement, the fire service said it had been in touch with Ms Aston and the hospital's fire safety manager after her letter and was satisfied the site was "compliant with fire safety legislation".

Hayley Flavell, director of nursing at Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital Trust, said its hospitals remained under pressures that led to patients waiting in the emergency department's corridor.

"This is not the level of care we aspire to, and we are doing all that we can to avoid this, through working with our system partners and developing alternative pathways," she said.

"The safety and care of our patients is our main priority with additional staff allocated when required and all fire regulations adhered to.

"We also try to maintain the dignity of our patients as much as possible with screens."