Letter to Editor: Chaos and confusion in Accident and Emergency at Princess Alexandra Hospital

Your Say / Sat 27th Sep 2025 at 09:26am

Dear Editor,

IS there a crisis happening here at Princess Alexandra Hospital?

On Thursday 25th September, the whole Accident and Emergency seemed in pure disarray.

4:20pm – my son arrived
6:30pm – finally got put on a drip
02:25am – following day still waiting to see a doctor

People sleeping in corridors, crying, in pain, doctors walking past not even stopping to ask if they are ok,

Fourteen hour waits for beds for people being kept in over night, the staff I know work long hours and are over worked and they are talking to everyone like utter rubbish.

All with only one doctor working, telling everyone your next or three in front.

People end up discharging themselves.

Current wait times for 2:30am

10 hours for A and E doctor
1 hour 30 for Triage

People in Accident and Emergency: 133

What is going on here? What’s happened to this once loved hospital?

What happened in Harlow on a Thursday for it to be this bad?

My mind is blown with the lack of updates and reassurance to everyone here

Kind Regards

Name and address supplied.

Editor’s Note

Our reader’s son was seen just after 4am on Friday morning.

6 Comments for Letter to Editor: Chaos and confusion in Accident and Emergency at Princess Alexandra Hospital:

Guy Flegman

2025-09-27 09:47:51

This seems to be the norm nowadays. I had to go to A&E in london recently at 3am. Nurses were great and put me on morphine within 30 minutes but I then spent the next 8 hrs sat in a plastic chair semi conscious waiting to see a doctor. There were only 4 people in A&E so I asked the nurse why no one was being treated. Turns out there are no doctors on duty that night and they were to phone one if some one was in a life threatening situation. This cannot be any way to run an A&E dept. I felt very sorry the the person with a badly broken arm who had been there since 8pm. Remember folks no matter how rich you are you have to rely on the NHS in an emergency, there is no other option. I while hospital services have to be managed to a budget this should not be the case for A&E dept’s as these are the bedrock of the whole NHS.

David Forman

2025-09-27 11:50:29

Both Labour and Conservative governments justified A&E closures on the basis of concentrating consultants to provide 24/7 cover. However, Guy Flegman's and others say just getting any doctor quickly is difficult. As far back as April 2017 the Centre for Health and the Public Interest studied the closure of two Northwest London A&E units and their affect on the remaining A&Es. They discovered: "Performance against the 95% 4-hour wait target dropped to as low as 60%" and "the bed occupancy rate in all hospital trusts in North West London has been above 85%, compromising clinical safety through overcrowding." As Guy Flegman says, "A&E departments are the bedrock of the NHS". See CHPI report at https://www.chpi.org.uk/blog/closing-ae-departments-led-deterioration-performance-remain-north-west-london-new-analysis-warns-risk-patients-aes-closed

David Forman

2025-09-27 11:54:31

Forgot to say Starmer's Labour promised us Change. What happened?

Seamus

2025-09-27 14:15:21

14 hours was the longest I've waited with my elderly father. Harlows A&E has become very comfortable in having one of the worst records in Essex and because it's gone on for so long, you can only assume with nothing being done to change it, they have no intention in changing it. It's made worse because Epping and bishops stortford do not have an A & E departments so those needing to be seen, aim for Harlow. It is verging on a third world run hospital with management heavy groups taking top dollar to do very little.

J

2025-09-29 00:18:24

The hospital is not designed for the numbers it sees. When all the a&e closures happened, it just put more and more pressure on those that remained opened. Our hospital serves nearly 3 quarters of a million people. If the other a&es hadn't been closed, then it wouldn't be serving such a large number for the size it is. Our hospital was built for harlow and the surrounding villages. Not neighbouring towns and counties. Blame the government, not the hospital’s. They try their best with the little they are given. If staff members go sick, go on holiday or maternity leave, they have to ask and beg to get someone in to cover them. The government has them in a triple lock. If they are told no, they cannot get someone in to cover. Plenty of staff want to work overtime, but not many get a chance to fill those gaps because nhs England tells them no. Focus on the blaming the right people, those at the top in government and in power. Dont blame those on the ground floor, who are doing their best to make all the patients feel better with the little they have.