The investigation also found that people were regularly and inappropriately transferred to same-day emergency care, which was used as an extra medical area to accommodate the volume of people in the emergency department, despite not fitting the criteria.
It was also discovered that while staff worked well together in their own environment, they did not always work well across teams and services to support people, which risked creating a poor pathway for the person and conflict among teams.
Carolyn Jenkinson, deputy director of hospitals in the West Midlands, said they found the “lack of clinical management had the potential to put people’s health at risk, and there weren’t enough staff to deliver safe care to people”.
“Although staff treated people with kindness, there weren’t enough staff to meet people’s needs due to the crowding and capacity of the department.
“Pathways were not always followed, such as the chest pain pathway. We saw people were not always in the appropriate area within the department for their health concern, putting them at risk of harm.”