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<\/p>\nSpecial report: The NHS in our region is already under huge strain and those working in it and experiencing it fear a harrowing winter to come<\/p>\n
77-year-old Lynda Hill was left lying in the street for five hours with a broken hip while waiting for an ambulance to arrive <\/p>\n
There are fears of a grim winter to come in Merseyside’s NHS after an elderly woman waited five hours lying in the street for an ambulance and nurses reported hellish conditions with patients dying in A&E waiting rooms.<\/p>\n
Healthcare staff <\/a>say they are already burnt out and unable to keep up with the enormous flow of sick patients and are now dreading the colder, winter months where the numbers of those coming to A&E departments will soar again.<\/p>\n One nurse who works in the A&E department at Arrowe Park Hospital<\/a> in Wirral<\/a> told the ECHO that she had witnessed people dying in the waiting room before being seen, and said elderly patients with severe injuries are consistently waiting in the back of ambulances for entire nights, unable to get inside the hospital.<\/p>\n The exhausted nurse, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, told us: “It is worse than it has ever been and it is only going to get worse as we head into winter.<\/p>\n “There is a huge amount of staff off with work-related stress at the moment. The hospital trust is trying to save money, so we often aren’t getting bank (agency) staff to replace them and are just being told to get on with it.<\/p>\n “So the rest of us are having to pick up the slack and it is awful. There are just too many very sick patients and nowhere to put them.”<\/p>\n “More people will die in chairs and on trolleys on corridors”<\/p>\n Last winter the ECHO reported on the chaotic conditions inside the hospital, where an elderly woman died alone on a corridor trolley without staff able to tend to her.<\/a><\/p>\n One nurse told us this was not the only time this has happened. She said that earlier this summer a patient died slumped in a wheelchair in the waiting room where they had been for 26 hours.<\/p>\n In August, a new \u00a340m urgent and emergency care facility opened at Arrowe Park, marking the biggest capital investment in the Wirral hospital since it first opened in 1982.<\/p>\n Queues of ambulances outside Arrowe Park hospital where staff have described desperate scenes <\/p>\n But one nurse working in the department told the ECHO the new state-of-the-art facility has not helped the situation staff are facing inside.<\/p>\n They said: “The new building has not helped things, if anything we have less space than before. Our escalation area for A&E is being labelled a medical ward, which is just fudging the numbers for A&E – it is still us having to look after the people in there.”<\/p>\n Detailing some of the grim scenes she has witnessed in the department in recent months, the nurse added: “We have patients in the back of ambulances all night long because they can’t get inside the hospital. We recently had an elderly gentleman with a shattered femur who was outside in an ambulance for over six hours.”<\/p>\n The nurse added: “We also had a 96-year-old in the waiting room for 16 hours. It is not safe, we just have nowhere to put people.<\/p>\n “I am 100% sure that more people will die unattended on trolleys and in chairs this winter. I am really afraid of what is coming. Staff morale is rock bottom, it is my goal to find a new job and get out by next year.”<\/p>\n It is not only inside the hospitals where major pressures are already being felt when it comes to NHS services in our region.<\/p>\n This week an elderly woman lay on a Merseyside pavement with a broken hip for nearly five hours before an ambulance finally arrived.<\/p>\n Elderly woman waiting five hours on the street<\/p>\n Steve Ashcroft was pulling into the road where he lives, Holden Grove in Brighton-le-Sands, Crosby<\/a> on Tuesday afternoon when he heard 77-year-old Lynda Hill shouting for help.<\/p>\n He told the ECHO: “She was outside a house on the side of the pavement. I did a quick assessment and established pretty quickly that it was either her leg, hip or pelvis. She is 77 and has problems with osteoporosis. She is also on blood thinners so I was worried about an internal injury.”<\/p>\n![\"Queues](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/0_NHScrisisarrowepark.jpg\")
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