Serious concerns have been raised after 34-year-old Thomas Casey collapsed and died in front of his son while waiting in A&E for medical help at Broomfield Hospital on Friday, January 16.
Mr Casey was reportedly admitted with chest pains and given “pain medication” but died in front of those also waiting in A&E, including his 19-year-old son.
A full investigation has also been launched and will be led by a hospital not involved in the patient’s care. The death came amid changes to the way the hospital is triaging patients following concerns about long queues out of the door.
At a health overview and scrutiny meeting on January 29, councillor Stephen Robinson described historic triaging as “appalling”.
Julie Smith, managing director for Broomfield Hospital, said: ”We have recognised that is not acceptable. We have put in a new triage process where we have additional resources of healthcare assistants and nurses to undertake that triage within the first few minutes of the patient arriving.
“We’ve changed the flow at the front door. For those of you describing queues of patients outside Broomfield’s emergency department with individuals leaning against the brick wall, that doesn’t happen anymore.
“Those patients are brought in. At the point of their arrival, they are immediately triaged by health care professionals to undertake blood pressure immediate observations, and ECGs if required.
“And then based on the results of those tests, they are immediately streamed into appropriate areas of care – whether that’s remaining in that minor seated area or triaged and moved into an area of higher acuity to receive the care that they need.
“This was this was a six-month pilot that the team within the emergency department brought about themselves And it is clearly a work in progress but the initial results are very positive in terms of reducing the queues external to the doors and ensuring patients are triaged and moved very quickly into the right areas to receive the right care.”