SCOTLAND'S largest health board has begun a review after elderly patient died on a trolley at a flagship super hospital after waiting six hours for treatment.
It is believed the OAP died at the £1 billion Queen Elizabeth University Hospital in Glasgow after a cardiac arrest on Tuesday.
NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde said its Immediate Assessment Unit had been "under extra pressure" when the man died in the early hours of Tuesday.
It confirmed that the elderly patient had a six hour wait for treatment.
The health board said that a full review of the man's treatment and that the outcome will be shared with them when concluded.
The board also denied reports that any while the unit was busy that there were blood transfusions taking place in either the corridor or waiting areas.
A health board spokeswoman said the unit was fully staffed but was under extra pressure due to a higher than average number of patients attending the department.
She said: "Our thoughts and sympathies are with the patient’s family at this difficult time.
“Our staff worked extremely hard to ensure patients were assessed, investigated, diagnosed, treated and admitted to a bed or discharged as quickly as possible and we apologise to patients who had a long wait.”
In a statement, the authority said: "Our thoughts and sympathies are with the patient's family at this difficult time.
"A senior member of our clinical management team has been in direct contact with the family to confirm that a full review of the patient's treatment is being carried out and that the outcome will be shared with them when concluded."
The board confirmed that the patient who died in the early hours of Tuesday morning had an initial assessment by a member of nursing staff on arrival at the Immediate Assessment Unit (IAU) at the hospital.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel