Crowded wards warnings 'ignored'

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/-/1/hi/england/coventry_warwickshire/6194283.stm

Version 0 of 1.

A hospital chief executive failed to heed repeated warnings from senior doctors about the practice of overcrowded bays, the BBC has learned.

David Loughton told doctors at the Walsgrave Hospital, Coventry, that the then Health Secretary made it clear patients must not be turned away.

The former chief executive at the Walsgrave said he told doctors the hospital would pay out for any errors.

Mr Loughton told the BBC it was an "unacceptable practice".

The practice was well known in the health community David Loughton

One consultant has described the period as the "most stressful" of his career.

Staff claimed bays were so cramped they could not get resuscitation equipment to patients.

Colin Ward died in an overcrowded bay at the hospital in 1999 and the exact cause of his death has still not been fully explained.

There were two more deaths in overcrowded bays six months later.

For those deaths clinical instant report forms - a red alert warning to managers - were filled out.

Red alert warning

The hospital has not revealed the contents of the second report.

Consultants and physicians wrote to management refusing to condone the overcrowding policy.

Mr Loughton, who is now the chief executive at New Cross Hospital, in Wolverhampton, continued with the practice until forced by the health regulator to stop in August 2001.

Two weeks after one death which prompted a red alert warning, Mr Loughton told doctors at the Coventry hospital that the then Health Secretary Alan Milburn had ordered that patients must not be turned away.

He added that the hospital would pay out if there were any mistakes.

Mr Loughton told BBC Midlands Today: "The practice was well known in the health community.

"On two occasions I personally took the regional director around the wards to show him the unacceptable practice."

'Not standard'

The Department of Health has refused to give the BBC any documents relating to the issue.

Consultant physician, Dr David Nicholl, said he raised the alarm by filling in a red alert form warning of the dangers, after witnessing a near miss.

He said: "It was the most stressful time and depressing time of my career in 20 years.

"You felt a sense of frustration that nothing was being done to change this, that this was an accepted practice, which it should not be.

"I've never seen that practice in any hospital I've worked in. That is not standard medical care."