Healthwatch Telford and Wrekin A&E Report 29 Jan 2025
The programme said at the time in its promotion of the episode:
“Over two months, a Dispatches reporter has filmed secretly while working in a major NHS A&E department. The undercover footage exposes the suffering and dangers patients face on a daily basis.”
The programme says it filmed poor care, long waits, people in pain for long periods of time, lack of dignity and internal messaging warning of shortcomings.
This comes on the back of a Care Quality Commission report published on 15 May highlighting concerns regarding Accident and Emergency (A&E) services in Telford and Shrewsbury hospitals.
Healthwatch Telford and Wrekin are people’s health and social care champion. We make sure NHS leaders and other decision makers hear people’s voice and use their feedback to seek improvements to services.
We needed people to let us know about their experiences of care in the Accident and Emergency Departments at the Princess Royal Hospital in Telford or the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital in Shrewsbury.
We asked people to tell us their experiences of being treated in either accident and emergency department, whether the experience was poor or negative or if people found their experience to be positive and felt well cared for. We are here not just to capture the not so good but to also highlight when things are working well.
We wanted to get to the bottom of what services are like on a day to day basis not just on a few occasions. We asked people to help in sharing their experiences and created a short survey for people to share their experiences on.
Healthwatch Telford and Wrekin are hearing so many worrying stories and accounts in the press about the state of care in Telford and Shrewsbury Hospitals from people, the Care Quality Commission and now Channel 4 Dispatches. This report sets out peoples experiences up until the beginning of August 2024. We are planning a follow on survey to ask people to share their experiences post August to see how the changes made in A&E services have impacted on peoples experiences.
