A senior nurse and two matrons told this paper about their experiences of working at Queen’s Hospital at a time when the emergency department is seeing record demand.
Almost 31,000 patients attended Barking, Havering and Redbridge University Hospitals Trust (BHRUT) A&Es in December 2024, and Queen’s A&E frequently sees more than double the number of people than it has capacity for.
Senior nurse Gloria Lewis says the “overcrowding” at the department means there is “no respite”.
Gloria said: “I think I’m just A&E through and through – the running around, the constant doing something and giving that care is for me.
“You’re consistently problem solving, you have to be able to multi-task. You’re doing everything all at once.
“[But now] there is no respite, there is no downtime and it’s because of the volume of the patients.”
The senior nurse has worked in A&E for more than six years, and said she has noticed a difference in the numbers of patients in the past year.
She added: “Before in the summer we used to have a down period but now it’s constant [year round].
“You always still try your best, but you burn out.”
The added pressure now is that, due to the lack of capacity at Queen’s Hospital A&E, patients are being treated in the corridors.
Gloria and other senior nurses have to make quick decisions about who to step out into the corridor and who to admit to a ward, on top of coordinating referrals, remembering where everyone is and liaising with other members of staff.
The corridor care also means there is less space for relatives to sit with patients and, when they can, they are upset to see their loved ones being treated in the corridor.
Jay Appadu, a deputy matron who has worked at BHRUT for 20 years, told this paper that because patients in the corridor do not have access to ward facilities, they need to be moved to dedicated privacy areas for things like changing – which is often one room shared between multiple patients.
“You’re having to move that patient physically to an area to be able to deliver that care,” Jay explained.
“This puts strain on the staff and strain on the patient.
“It’s very challenging, and it’s quite overwhelming for staff as well as patients and relatives.”
In these high pressure situations, A&E staff are experiencing “violence and aggression” from members of the public “more regularly”, says Jay.
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“Verbal aggression is more common, and we do have a level of physical aggression but it’s very minimal.
“Staff have to endure [this] not only working in a constricted area, but also working with the dynamics of everyone else getting stressed.”
Matron Marianne Govinden, who has also worked at the trust for two decades, added that emergency department staff have built up a certain level of tolerance to this behaviour.
Marianne told us: “We definitely have a certain level of acceptance to some verbal abuse, but I think it’s because we understand and relate to their frustrations of having a loved one in the corridor.
“We’re there with them – we don’t want to have to nurse these patients in the corridors.”
Ruth Green, clinical group director of nursing, agreed – but said that staff are getting a level of acceptance to it that is “not right”.
“I think they are not reporting it as frequently as they should do,” Ruth said.
“I think a lot of the swearing and shouting that goes on towards the staff can be very intimidating and upsetting.”
BHRUT is campaigning to secure £35 million in funding to “transform” Queen’s Hospital A&E, in the hopes of ending corridor care and alleviating some of the extra pressure it puts on staff.
Ruth told this paper: “What we really would like to have is an emergency department that is fit for the population, because at the moment it’s really horrible for our patients, it’s terrible for relatives and it’s awful for staff.”
