Jess Phillips' father left 'disorientated and shaking' in 'harrowing' 18-hour A&E wait
Labour MP Jess Phillips has revealed how her cancer-stricken father endured an 18-hour A&E wait for medication after NHS services suspected he may have developed sepsis.
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Labour MP Jess Phillips said she feared her father would die after he waited at A&E for 18 hours. Ms Phillips' elderly father Stewart, 78, sought care for suspected sepsis but was left waiting while "disorientated and shaking". She said the experience left her "so angry" as NHS figures show patients are enduring excessive waits for urgent treatment.
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Speaking to the Daily Mirror, the MP for Birmingham Yardley told reporters her brother called the NHS non-emergency 111 service on her father's behalf at 10am.
An operator informed him a paramedic was on the way to see him for suspected sepsis - a life-threatening medical emergency - but they still hadn't arrived seven hours later.
Ms Phillips rushed to her father's side from her London home and drove him to Birmingham's Queen Elizabeth Hospital.
They arrived at the hospital's A&E department by 7.30pm on Wednesday, November 9, where he was diagnosed with a severe infection.
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He was still waiting for a doctor on Thursday morning, with Ms Phillips told to go home and come back to see him at 9am on November 10.
She told the Mirror her father's condition worsened as they waited, leaving him "disorientated and shaking".
They were still waiting after 18 hours, and the family was given the option to leave with antibiotics for retired teacher Mr Trainor, who suffers from chronic lymphocytic leukaemia.
She cried "on a number of occasions" while waiting with her father but later brought him home with "bags of pills and instructions for monitoring", she told her Twitter followers.
The MP blamed the harrowing experience on decades of Conservative governing failures.
Her local A&E had "saved my life and the lives of my loved ones", she said, but she had "never seen it like that".
She questioned: “The Tories have been in power for 12 years. What on Earth have they left us with?”
Ms Phillips praised NHS staff at the A&E, whose "loveliness" made the experience "a million times better".
Recent data shows tens of thousands of people endure similar A&E waits to Mr Trainor.
Officials recorded the highest number of 12+ hour waits in years last month.
Approximately 43,792 people spent more than half a day between decision and admission in October 2022, 10,000 more than the 32,776 who waited in September.
The British Medical Association (BMA) estimated that 60 times more people now face these wait times than in October 2019.
