Journalist Piers Morgan today told the Prime Minister that his mother’s experience in a Brighton hospital A&E was like “a scene out of a warzone”.
Mr Morgan told Rishi Sunak that his mother, 79, spent almost seven hours on a hospital trolley in a corridor, along with 35 to 40 other patients waiting for treatment.
The interview, part of an hour-long special for Piers Morgan Uncensored on Talk TV, also saw the PM admit that his government has failed on their pledge to cut NHS waiting lists.
Mr Morgan said his mother, Gabrielle, was taken by ambulance to Royal Sussex County Hospital on 6 November, 2023 for urgent specialist treatment in their cardiac care unit.
Mr Morgan said: “She was seen when she got there, and then she was put on a trolley in A&E, in a corridor, for nearly seven hours.
“The heart monitor battery ran out. Nobody fixed it.
“At one stage, no nurse came for three or four hours.
“She said old men were begging for bottles to urinate into, others were crying in pain or discomfort.
“She said it was a scene out of a warzone. And she couldn’t believe what she was seeing.”
He also said in his column for The Sun newspaper that there were no electric sockets near enough in the corridor to charge the heart monitor battery and all the vending machines were out of order.
He wrote: “No blame should be attached to the beleaguered nursing staff, who were insanely busy all night and just couldn’t cope with the sheer volume of patients – and this wasn’t even the weekend!”
Mr Morgan went on to say that his mother’s treatment once in the cardiac unit was “world-class”, and that she was back home within 48 hours after being given a stent in surgery to fix a blocked artery.
The interview with the PM is to be shown in full on the Piers Morgan Uncensored YouTube channel at 2pm and TalkTV at 8pm tonight.
Dr Andy Heeps, chief operating officer at University Hospitals Sussex said: “Our staff are working incredibly hard to give their patients the very best care, but sadly we all recognise the significant challenges they face, and the impact this can have on people needing their support. Waiting times in A&E reflect pressures across the whole local health and care system, and winter is the busiest time of year.
“There has been a huge amount of work to reduce the time that patients have to wait, and further improvements are still being made.
“We will be opening a new surgical assessment unit in Brighton, which we expect will help to manage demands on staff more effectively, and we continue to work with partners to speed up processes to free up hospital beds once people are well enough to leave.”
and just look at the way he’s smirking as Morgan tells his story .. the guy is a complete “wrong’n” .. we can all see it
That’s the Royal Sussex, currently under investigation for various failings, being incompetent is one
Then every hospital is incompetent as that’s the exact same situation in every A&E up and down the country.
Or possibly it’s this sh1tshow of a government failing the NHS?
I work in this A&E – the corridor problem is caused by a combination of increased demand, and not having enough beds available in the hospital, due to cuts in local step-down beds, leading to delayed discharges. There are also delays in arranging care packages. Added to that is the ongoing increased demand from an aging population which appears not to have been planned for long-term has led to this perfect storm. Believe me, the A&E staff are also tearing their hair out with frustration at this situation.
Sunak looks totally detached in every way, emotionally, rationally ….. I am surprised he didn’t suggest she should have gone private. With his smirky facial expression he clearly doesn’t care. After all he doesn’t need the NHS as he has private medical insurance.
I was very recently treated as an emergency at RSCH A&E, i was seen right away and had a operation within a hour of calling a Ambulance. You have to remember that some cases are life threatening and must take priority. I won’t complain if i have to wait in A&E in the future.
The main problem in Brighton and Hove is that the first point of call for medical help is broken. I now have to wait four weeks to see my GP. Many in A&E are there because they can’t get a GP appointment. A&E has now become the first point of call.
It was like this before Covid on a weekend. I guess it has not improved despite all that extra cash.
My experience was one of nightmares. 3 to a cubicle. People in serious pain and distress, corridors full of sick people…….to say it was a war zone was an understatement. Medical staff doing their best in terrible conditions.
Still the new part of the hospital looks great especially the coffee lounge which is the size of a football pitch. So glad management has got the right priorities…..NOT!!
A decade of Tory austerity !
None of the extra cash went to NHS services – crony providers of PPE and testing kits, management consultants and PR firms. This cash could have done so much good in the NHS.
…..And all Rishi Sunak can do is sit there with a big smirk all over his face while the people of Brighton suffer at the hospital. We deserve better!!
Exactly. He has that big smirk because along with the rest of the Tory elite he has no similar experience and probably never will. With that he has no real understanding either.
I visited A&E regularly over the last few weeks and Monday and Tuesday were truely shocking like a war zone and exactly as Piers described.
Just like the other crimes being perpetuated during Tory reign the people responsible are Sunak and his government. There’s just no excuse.
Following a recent period in A&E at the county all I wish to say is nursing and other staffs were heroes coping oustandingly well in difficult conditions
What very short memories some people have. It was a Tory government that approved the spending on the new hospital in the first place and a local Tory MP who pushed for it. The fact that NHS management has messed up the entire project big time and is under police investigation for alleged medical/surgical irregularities (plus the fact that a new A&E department has only just been mentioned when it should have been one of the top priorities) tells you all you need to know about how NHS executives have mishandled many things. We are now reading about a broken MRI scanner in the flagship Louisa Martindale building – not to mention the helipad fiasco re the cladding – and a very material delay in building the new radiopharmacy unit so that it faces the prospect of remaining in a temporary building for much longer. None of this has anything to do with ‘Tory austerity’, but it has a lot to do with incompetence by NHS management (and I’m not talking about frontline clinical staff, who are probably mostly very good but are trying to do their job with one hand tied behind their backs).
He calls it a warzone. We call it Tuesday.
Management at the RSCH is criminal. PALS enjoy goading patients if they dare to ask for help. Not there to be patient advocates any more, there to lie and protect the shockingly overpaid and corrupt management team.
I have never had great treatment at this hospital and have been waiting 15 months for ENT. Have been told it is at least another year. Too many Chiefs and not enough Indians.
Sunak and the like aren’t bothered. I bet an ambulance would be found if he mentioned his name. It will never affect them or their families they can afford to go privately.
Look at good old Boris, lounging around in ICU with ‘Covid’.
No one needs to take up an ICU bed to have 4 litres of oxygen.
Served an agenda there, but someone else must have snuffed it whilst that PR stunt was going on.