An 86-year-old man with suspected sepsis had to wait 24 hours in a hospital's A&E corridor where he was "freezing, delirious and hungry" with just a bowl of Weetabix to eat.
Frances Duckett was reportedly taken by ambulance to Royal Blackburn hospital A&E on October 26 after being referred by his doctor.
His daughter-in-law, Jackie, went with him to the hospital where he ended up having to wait 24 hours in a corridor despite potentially having a serious condition.
She told LancsLive : "He had to wait in the corridor for 24 hours, he was freezing and he hadn't eaten, you just think what is going on?"
Mr Duckett is diabetic and was said to have "only eaten Weetabix" at 12:30am during his wait while family claim they were not allowed to visit Mr Duckett and provide him with food.
Jackie described her father-in-law as having been "freezing, hungry and delirious" while he waited in the corridor.
Jackie continued: "Once an ambulance takes you to hospital, you should be their responsibility. Why would you have to wait so long? Sepsis is a killer. He could have been dead."
Sepsis is the body's extreme response to an infection and is life-threatening.
She said her father-in-law's experience was "horrendous" and claimed the hospital "didn't seem to care" about Mr Duckett.
"There's no way he will be going back there," she said. "He was taken to a ward where he didn't know anyone and he came home on Thursday where we will keep him warm and feed him."
Jackie added: "I appreciate times are hard but why admit people to hospital with wait times like that? They need to help people."
Chris Pearson, chief nurse at East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust, admitted that the care given to Mr Duckett was not up to standard.
She added: “I’d like to apologise to both Mr Duckett and his family. It’s clear this experience was not in line with our usual high standards of safe, personal and effective care.
“The Trust has been experiencing very high demand for services and particularly in A&E and all urgent and emergency care settings. We always do everything we can to assess people and if needed admit them as quickly as possible. When it’s busy this can take longer than we’d like.
“If anyone feels our standards have dropped, we encourage them to let us know so that we can investigate and make improvements. I am pleased to hear that Mr Duckett continues to recover at home with his family.”
