Terminally ill cancer patient forced to sleep on the floor in A&E due to a lack of beds
Shadow Health Secretary Wes Streeting has branded the crisis engulfing NHS hospitals 'a disgrace' after it emerged a terminally ill cancer patient was forced to sleep on the floor of A&E as no beds were available.
Madeleine Butcher had 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 has visited A&E on several occasions due to sepsis following her chemotherapy treatment.
Her husband John, 61, told The Blackpool Gazette in previous incidents 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 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 A&E with just a blanket and pillow after staff said there were no beds available
Mrs Butcher received blood tests about half an hour after arriving and saw a doctor more than three hours later, who agreed she was likely suffering from sepsis, the newspaper reported.
But despite her prognosis, she was told she might have to wait up to 36 hours in A&E to be seen.
Mrs Butcher, who not only has a tumour but a hernia from her operation, told hospital staff she was uncomfortable and could not sit down for any longer.
However, after asking if there was a bed, trolley or even a reclining chair she could use to make herself comfortable, she was told 'nothing was available'.
Instead a doctor gave her a blanket and a pillow so she could lie on the floor.
'I was absolutely horrified. I didn’t realise how angry I was until I got home and I looked at the picture of her on the floor,' Mr Butcher told The Gazette.
Furious he couldn't understand how a doctor would think it was acceptable for his wife, a terminally ill patient, to lie on the floor.
However, nurses did take action and managed to find a trolley within half an hour once they saw what happened.
But, he believes it should have been resolved sooner.
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 Labour has a plan to deliver it.'
Marie Forshaw, Acting Executive Director of Nursing, Midwifery, Allied Health Professionals and Quality, said they have received a formal complaint about Mrs Butcher's care.
'I’d like to thank her for coming forward and am very sorry if the quality of care she has received did not meet the high standards our patients should expect,' she said.
NHS England data revealed 54,000 patients spent more than 48 hours in A&E and almost 19,000, the equivalent of three days – many without even a trolley to wait on.
Waits of more than 12 hours for emergency care are up 100-fold since 2019, and 40 per cent of patients wait far longer than four hours to be discharged, transferred or admitted.
This comes after nurses in A&E were caught on film laughing about how they weren't hitting targets after they admitted one of their patients had already waited 46 hours for care.
The shocking state of NHS care was revealed after a Channel 4 Dispatches reporter went undercover at the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital's A&E, posing as a trainee healthcare assistant.
