The Accident and Emergency (A&E) Department at the Royal Sussex County Hospital was described as “bedlam” by a councillor who needed to go there last week.
Hospital bosses were given other first-hand accounts of long waits, safety fears and people being treated in corridors at a council meeting yesterday (Wednesday 8 July).
They heard from members of Brighton and Hove City Council’s Health Overview and Scrutiny Committee in a meeting at Hove Town Hall.
The hospital team updated the committee on the £62 million project to improve the “acute floor” in the Thomas Kemp Tower including A&E, the Acute Medical Unit (AMU) and the Urgent Treatment Centre (UTC).
Labour councillor Amanda Evans told the hospital bosses that she recently had to go to A&E early in the week during the day.
She had nowhere to sit, with people having to stand for hours, even without the “drunks and fighters” from the pubs and clubs who turn up there late at night.
Councillor Evans said that one of the frustrations was the size of the “vast echoing” reception area of the new Louisa Martindale Building which she called a “huge wasted space”.
She said: “I walked all the way through there (reception), past all the people being treated in the corridor in the middle of the summer, not the NHS in winter crisis, and then into an A&E department.
“We’ve talked about sitting in A&E for four hours. There were no seats (and) there were lots of patients, including me, standing for hours.
“It was beyond chaotic. I felt really sorry for the staff and all of us patients as well as sorry for myself.”
She wanted to know if there would be more waiting capacity in the expanded facilities.
The hospital’s interim chief operating officer Nigel Kee said that there were 15 patients receiving care in the corridor on the day of the meeting. He said that bed-blocking caused the “bottleneck” in A&E.
Mr Kee said: “We know that our patient flow is quite challenging on a day-to-day basis and that’s partly because some of the challenges of safely discharging patients from our wards and that creates a bit of a bottleneck through to A&E.
“There’s a lot of work going on around how we can continue to improve that patient flow through the hospital and back to their home.”
The head of nursing on the acute floor, Craig Marsh, said that the previous week had been a particularly busy one.
Mr Marsh said: “We don’t need to wait for the rebuild to happen for us to start improving our pathways for patients when they come through.
“What we need to work on is how we better stream patients from the front door to other places.”
He said that the seating area would be bigger in the rebuilt A&E, with the aim being to achieve the “gold standard” of every patient receiving a medical plan within four hours.
Healthwatch Brighton and Hove chair Geoffrey Bowden said that the organisation had carried out many “interim reviews” of A&E, arriving unannounced to observe.
Mr Bowden said that it was a great shame that the money could not have been found to reconfigure A&E when approval and funding was being sought for the Louisa Martindale Building.
When he went to A&E about 10 years ago, he said that he ended up discharging himself from the hospital.
Mr Bowden said: “It felt extremely unsafe when I was there sitting, surrounded by people in tracksuit bottoms, with cans of Special Brew slipping out of their pockets and axes in their heads and so on.
“I discharged myself after 18 hours because it felt safer to be in my own bed if I was going to die rather than there.”
He praised the new parts of the hospital as “much calmer and better organised”.
Community and voluntary sector representative Nora Mzaoui, director of community organisation Bridging Change, shared her concerns about the lack of water in A&E, particularly during the hot weather.
She said: “A lot of people are scared to lose their seat so they won’t get up and get water. So will there be more spaces more accessible to snacks and water?”
The hospital’s transformation programme manager Nikki Mead said that water dispensers would be included in the new waiting area.
She said that there were no vending facilities in the department now but they would be added in the new waiting area.
The meeting was told that when the A&E Department opened in 1970, it was designed to manage 20,000 patients a year but currently received more than 100,000.
Amanda need to have a chat with her colleagues in Westminster
How difficult can it be to provide water?
I imagine fairly hard considering the building cannot be shut down.
I do have to wonder why they didn’t widen the main road when they rebuilt at the front of the hospital. It would have made sense to make the bus stops from town, in a bay rather than blocking the main route for ambulances to a&e. Something I’m sure Brighton councillors actually have some power over ?
When we were there waiting room. Packed no seats for everyone. No water available no snacks 12hr wait and he’s 85!! And normally fit .patients escorted in by police!got priority,drunks hanging around too. No updates given, digital display faulty. Worrying
Yeah, those vending machines are all the way down the far end of the hall, aren’t they?
Why do we keep hearing the same lies from that Trust and people keep accepting the status quo? I have a family member who is on the front line in A&E and have to deal with the daily corridor care issues with 20+ patients being cared for every day with no movement to other wards. Apparently numerous issues are raised formally with management and nobody takes any notice. The mental health crisis is completely unbearable and unimaginable but no support seems to be forthcoming from Sussex Partnership who has a responsibility for these patients. The department is not fit for purpose and should have its Major Trauma status removed! The executive team have consistently, for years, redirected money to other parts or the organisation and not invested in the A&E service and is also invisible. This is despite a recent CQC report stating that very point, nothing has changed! It’s a toxic place to work and although the staff do as much as they possibly can it’s never good enough! I’m sick to death of hearing how things are going to change and never do! Patients and staff deserve better! Maybe ask the people on the ground. Enough is enough and patients deserve better and they deserve honesty.
When I last attended a&e up there. I can only describe it as looking like a war zone.
People shouting and kicking off about how long they had been waiting.
People screaming in pain.
It took them over 6 hours of asking for them to give some pain relief. (I was there due to cancer related pain & side effects of a previous treatment)
The front line staff are incredible and do their best in such horrific work conditions and still keep going.
I don’t think the doctors, nurses and allied health professionals went into there roles to ever ,treat patients in corridors and or see them come in and not be able to sit down for hours.
It’s not the front life staff that are to blame. It’s the years & years of lack of funding outside of hospital in social care allowing for bed blocking as well as too many management and pen pusher roles being paid far too much and yet the demand and issues continue to rise.
When Dr George Finniley was CE at the trust before resigning not to long ago, his wage and bonus he received over 1 year could have also paid the equivalent of 11 separate band 5 qualified nurses wages.
This is all part of the problem.
I honestly believe in 10-15 years. The NHS will not exisit as we’ve known and know it now.
The dedicated staff on the front line really are the glue holding that hospital together. But the management and lack of funding which in turn, treats them with disrespect and disregard for long enough. Put them under immense pressure. It will break and harm staff and they will leave. So many newly qualified nurses are travelling to places like Australia to work in their chosen field. Not necessarily because they want to. But because they get paid better, support with and dedicated housing that is subsidised as a thank you for doing their job, better working conditions, better work life balance, less pressure, perks and rewards to support and show their gratitude to you the job.
None of which you get working for the NHS currently. Just so sad….
Triagage is the key to A&E People use A&E as a GP surgery which it isn’t! There are other places to go like urgent care or a pharmacist.
If you can stand for 4 hours without being seen do you need to be in A&E?
I don’t understand why people use A&E as a first port of call.
In this heat people need to be sensible but we live in a society where know one takes any responsibility sitting on beach for hours getting sunburnt and heatstroke just irresponsible ending up in A&E.
I once had a complaint filed because I refused to take someone into hospital because it wasn’t medically relevant to be seen in A&E for a stubbed toe, and the 30-year old had five cars in their extensive driveway, and multiple people who could drive, and the GP was open. They’d mentioned on 111 that they had chest pain, so it caused an ambulance response.
I was diverted from a expectant mother having trouble with her pregnancy for that.
Totally agree.
Amanda is right on the Reception area.
The Stairwells are a waste of space aswell-there’s to much space all over the place.
In the old reception area at the front of Hospital -there was that massive Staircase-where has that gone.
And now you can see the Children’s Hospital from the Main road that all looks dis- coloured aswell.
There’s to much glass aswell at the front-someone was saying that not all the windows open up-not evening slightly some of them, and on that main road they are just dirty aren’t they.
And all those patients that just sit outside in Wheelchairs-smoking allday.
Windows don’t open because the building is air-conditioned. Literally as simple as that.
That’s not surprising. Corridor care is pretty standard for RSCH. A&E was due to double in capacity, last I heard. What I professionally seen works well on the point of triage is a doctor-led one compared to a nurse.
Doctor decides what needs to be ordered, like tests and bloods, straight away, so speeds up the process a bit and gets people out of A&E and into the rest of the hospital.
What a mess!! All that money spent on that “extraordinary front entry” plus the “palatial rooms build for the “less life/death” non doctor qualified back-up services. Waste of money especially compared to our A. & E. services. Is it possible to know how the corridor beds are costed please? Many years ago a “bed” – was not only the bed structure but each bed included cost of manning each bed (e.g. doctors, nurses, etc. ).
Really difficult to cost “manning” because each ward will be of different intensity, and even the condition that’s being treated, and that also changes throughout the person’s stay. For example, someone in cardiac arrest vs being medically fit and waiting for discharge. You probably still could do estimates or work it out, but I think if the goal is to be cost efficient, I think preventing admission in the first place and treating in community is shown to be far more cost effective, from what I’ve read on the subject anyway.
The more they spend on that hospital, the worse it gets. They are trying to serve too many people from too many areas and are operating the busiest department – A&E – out of what appears to be one of the smallest spaces! Contrast with entering the neighbouring Louisa Martindale building to ACRES of empty space doing nothing with a reception desk floating somewhere in the middle. Presumably to represent heaven for those who survive the hell of A&E?
When a hospital prioritises its cafe and retail space and a vast Reception atrium over its A&E department, that is also not a good sign. Lives could well have been lost as a result of such wrong-headed priorities in a building meant to save lives.
Objectively untrue.
Amanda Evans only cares because it affected her directly!
I was taken to A&E by ambulance in March direct from my GP surgery, I had a serious infection but was left on a trolley in the corridor for nearly 48 hours. Eventually I was diagnosed with an invasive Strep A infection and only then was my trolley moved to a large storage type space. Thank goodness my husband and family members supported me as I lost mobility. There was no dignity and not even anywhere to wash or clean your teeth. The staff were amazing and Drs tried v hard to get me to a ward but weren’t successful.
Eventually I was moved to the AMU at 4am on the second day I in spite of all that I did recover thanks to staff and microbiologists.
Capacity is always a challenge at a hospital, and I think there are ways to be bold in how we treat people. Expanding treatments at home, and “online wards”, as one small example.
Just appalling in A and E. That vast entrance to the hospital. Rubbish. The architects and hospital advisors etc didn’t have a clue sitting in their offices. Opthalmogy rooms with no windows. Children would have designed it better. It’s a hospital not a hotel. Floor to ceiling windows in wards. Design over practicality. Make someone responsible for this travesty.
Last time I was there it was like a zoo. People do not know how to behave anymore!
Talking loudly as if everyone wants to know their business, swearing between each other and demanding things from overworked medical staff.
Barely anywhere to sit and to top it all some muslim asking people to move seats because he could not possibly sit next to women because of his damn religion!
Do not get ill in Brighton!
Does Benjamin ™©get loyalty points every time he replies to someone?
Every other comment is someone describing a genuinely awful experience—48 hours on a trolley, six-hour waits in agony, no seats, corridor care—and like clockwork Benjamin appears to explain why they’re wrong, why it’s more complicated, or why they’re “objectively untrue.”
Congratulations, Benjamin. You’ve officially become the self-appointed Head of the Brighton & Hove News Comments Department.
Nobody is blaming the nurses, doctors or paramedics. In fact, most comments are praising them while criticising the system they’re forced to work in. Yet somehow you’ve managed to argue with almost everyone, including people simply sharing what happened to them.
Reading your replies is like being stuck in A&E itself: long, repetitive, and you wonder when it’ll finally end.
Perhaps instead of trying to win every debate, accept that if dozens of people are reporting the same problems, the problem probably isn’t the commenters.
The staff deserve better. Patients deserve better. And the comments section deserves a shift without Benjamin playing Professor Pedantic.
AI slop. Apart from Tracy’s usual, I’ve not disagreed with anyone – if you read what has actually been said, rather than rely on AI to tell you how to feel, you’d see that. 🙄
A & E dept Brighton is a disgrace, had to go there with my mother in law, she was left in A&E corridor for 48 hours, she wasn’t offered food or water, no changing facilities, it was very hot, and uncomfortable, me and my husband had to stand for seven hours, the sanitary situation was dire it was very unpleasant, and my mother in law said she never wants to ever go to hospital again.
It is just not good enough. Sack the board for failure. No more excuses..
The key problem really is like it says in the article. Designed for 20,000 – actually dealing with 100,000. There’s a lot more then just the building as well, like preventing people needing to go to hospital in the first place. If someone is waiting for hours upon hours, I would also be asking the pragmatic question of do they really need to be there, or can this be treated say at home?