Hospital boss quits over A&E chaos

A TOP health official has quit her job six months after offering to resign if there was no end to marathon delays in her hospital's emergency department.

Val Doyle departed as chief operating officer at the University Hospital of North Staffordshire after 11 months in the job.

Her resignation comes after queues grew even longer in the accident unit – and brought increasingly biting criticism from the public.

Mrs Doyle blamed the decision on her long commuting time to get to work and the need to spend more time with her family.

But in summer she staked her career on easing the problems and told The Sentinel on June 10: "If things do not improve I will either get sacked or resign as I won't want to work here any longer."

Since then public outcry has grown and dozens of patients have contacted The Sentinel to highlight their personal ordeals.

And unions representing the 7,000 staff at the Hartshill complex say the crisis is worse than ever.

Last Friday, Margorita Campbell, aged 74, of Penkhull, suffered a life-threatening blood clot in her leg. But she waited two hours alongside 27 patients in the same corridor without a single member of staff approaching her.

Eventually a nurse said there was no chance of her being seen until the following day.

Against advice from staff, her son Mark took her home untreated and over the weekend secured a GP referral for her to go to Burslem's Haywood Hospital for the injection of drugs which, he feels, saved her life.

Mark, aged 44, said: "Conditions were absolutely horrendous with patients on trolleys in various states of pain and distress, yet they were continually banged into as staff rushed around. There was no-one even available to take them to the toilet.

"I had to make 20 to 30 phone calls as I hassled to get her life or death treatment. That is disgusting and it is right that heads should roll for all this."

Retired cleaner Doris Nixon, from Bentilee, also in her mid-70s, waited 10 hours on a corridor for a bed after being taken to the unit with a heart condition.

Daughter Stephanie Nickels, a former nurse at the University Hospital but now living in Torquay, said: "When I worked there it had a good reputation – it's such a shame that's now sunk so low.

"The resignation of an official will make no difference.

"The real problem is that the hospital has moved heaven and earth to try to hit targets from the Government, which then thinks everything's OK so doesn't send any more resources."

Sixteen-year-old Joseph Bagnall, from Cheadle, was also delayed on a trolley after being taken to the unit by ambulance with a temperature of 39.5 degrees and raised heart rate and blood pressure.

Dad Lee said: "We met scenes of absolute chaos. It was so crowded we struggled to get his trolley off the pavement and into the corridor.

"When they eventually realised how ill he was he was fast-tracked to a bed, but before that there were no empty cubicles so he had to be assessed in a space between two of them.

"The actual care he got was excellent."

The hospital would not comment on the departure of Mrs Doyle but chief executive Julia Bridgewater said in an email to senior staff: "She hopes at some point to resume her career at a hospital nearer her home.

"She has worked incredibly hard and we wish her well for the future."

Trust performance director, Vanessa Scott, will take over in an interim capacity until a replacement is found. She will be assisted by Mark Mould, manager of the hospital's surgical division.

Pat Powell, leader of the hospital's Unison union branch, said: "Mrs Doyle said she would go if things didn't improve, so she has done the honourable thing.

"But we don't think she should have resigned because the real problem is the appalling system she was expected to manage.

"It all dates back the when former chief executive Antony Sumara cut 140 beds and hundreds of staff without making adequate re-provision in the community."