Family says 86-year-old waited 30 hours at Wigan hospital before reaching a ward

An 86-year-old woman spent more than 24 hours in a waiting-room chair at the Royal Albert Edward Infirmary in Wigan before she was moved to a corridor trolley and then, about 30 hours after arriving, to a ward, her family has said.

Joan Jones was taken to the hospital by ambulance in the early hours of Sunday 18 October, according to her son, Barry Jones, 62, of Ashton-in-Makerfield. He told BBC North West she was in "constant pain" throughout the wait. The family said she was "rolling over in pain".

Wrightington, Wigan and Leigh Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, which runs the hospital, said it took the family's concerns "very seriously" and that cutting waiting times was a "key priority". Its statement did not confirm or challenge the timings.

The account comes as the trust's emergency department faces renewed scrutiny over long waits. The Care Quality Commission found in February 2024 that waiting times and arrangements to admit, treat and discharge patients at the infirmary "were worse than national standards across most indicators", recording a regulatory breach. The BBC reported that a further CQC report published last month found the trust among the worst in the country for long waits.

Mr Jones said his mother had a collapsed gallbladder. He told the BBC he asked nursing staff repeatedly for help before she was given a pillow and moved onto a trolley in a corridor. He said one nurse told him his mother "wasn't a priority".

"The situation was unbelievable," he said. "Mum was so tired and weak."

Mr Jones also claimed patients brought in by police were treated ahead of his mother. "Police were bringing criminals in and they were going straight in to get treatment," he said. "The whole system is upside down. It's wrong that those people are getting seen first."

Nothing in the trust's statement addressed the claim about police-escorted patients, who are not identified. A&E departments triage patients by clinical need rather than order of arrival.

Mary Fleming, the trust's chief executive, said she was "sorry to hear about the concerns raised by Joan Jones's family" and that the trust would welcome the opportunity to speak to the family directly.

The trust said: "Because of increased demand across our urgent and emergency care services and delays in discharge, some patients are experiencing longer waits than we would ever want."

Mrs Jones's case has not been independently confirmed. Her son is the only source for the timings, and the trust has not published its own record of her arrival, triage or admission.

NHS England's monthly figures show 69% of A&E attendances across the trust in September were dealt with within four hours, against 74.4% for England as a whole. The NHS operational target is 78%. Analysis by the British Medical Association of the same national data found about 51,000 patients in England waited more than 12 hours from a decision to admit them to being admitted in September, up from about 45,000 in August.

During its 2024 inspection the CQC recorded that the longest wait for a bed or admission at the infirmary was 62 hours. It said the proportion of patients waiting more than four hours after a decision to admit was worse than the England average and among the worst in the region.

The trust has not said whether it has contacted the family or opened a formal review of Mrs Jones's care.